


Trinity

by Evilpixie



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Animated Universe, DCU, Superman - All Media Types, Wonder Woman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Drama & Romance, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Other, Polygamy, Threesome - F/M/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-24 03:09:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 36,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilpixie/pseuds/Evilpixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diana, Bruce, and Clark share in a special relationship. But when Diana falls pregnant the threesome have to come to terms with their unconventional love affair and the prospect of parenthood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this piece earlier this year but got swept into my 'Injustice' story before it could bare any fruit. Perhaps now, however, it's time has come.
> 
> It is chaotic, messy, and spotted with small strange moments of violent passion, drama, love, and odd little bits of quirkiness. If a single solid directional story with one consistent tone is what you're after... this may not be your cup of soup.
> 
> Depicts a non conventional relationship, explicit sex, NSFW etc.

They kissed over her shoulder. Diana felt the scrape of Bruce’s stumble and the smooth unyielding flesh of Clark’s cheek slide together against her neck. She heard the low sounds they made as their lips met, moved, and met again. She also heard the small hungry growls, the moans, and passionate gasps of air that interlaced their union. It was beautiful. They were beautiful. This was beautiful.

She added her own voice as Bruce slipped from Clark’s lips down to her neck. Kissing, sucking, and nipping a path along her collarbone. Hard. Demanding. Hungry. Clark buried his face in her hair and whispered soft encouraging nothings. Hands gentle despite her durability. Careful. Kind. Loving. And she was between them. Crushed in a tangle of limbs, bodies, and half uniforms. And by Hera… it was good.

Bruce’s lips crashed into hers, his teeth sank into her bottom lip, and his tongue danced teasingly between her jaw. The rich taste of him filled her mouth, his smell intoxicating, and the feel of him almost unbearable as he took possession of her as he had Clark. Clark who she now lay pressed against; the definition of his chest hard against her spine, and the strength of his arms encompassing them both. Clark who deftly popped the buckle on her breastplate with one hand and pulled it from the tangle of bodies with another.

Bruce seemed to take this as a sign and rocked back to shrug out of his cape and begin tearing open his armour. She watched in fascination as he revealed his pale skin, mattered with scars, and bunched with worked muscle. Behind her Clark found the clasps on her top and quickly undid them. Bruce growled his satisfaction as it was pulled away leaving her naked but for her star spangled underpants. His reaction awoke a keen knowledge of what was between her legs. And he knew it. She read his command of the situation in his intense blue eyes, his experience in the way he dismantled his costume, and his lust in the harsh rasp of air between his teeth. He knew what he wanted and how to get it.

Clark hooked his fingers between her underpants and her hips. No. She would not be the first one naked. With a flick of her waist she tossed him off, turned on his hips to face him, and slid her palms under his uniform. Clark smiled and helped her peel the shield off his chest in a single swift swipe. Bare. Muscled. Unmarked. Her lip curled. She might be one of the few beings on the planet that could change that. With a passion that surprised even her she leant forward and bit into his chest. Sucked. Stained that pure skin with a single small spot of puckered red. Clark gasped in surprise and looked down at the hicky. Eyes wide.

“You like that?”

“I… um…”

She reached across the floor, grabbed her lasso, and hooked it around his neck. It flared to life lighting the firm features of his face in a haunting shine. “Hmm?”

“Yes,” Clark admitted dazedly. “It’s hard being gentle all the time.”

“Don’t be.”

“I will be,” the lasso forced the words out.

“Don’t be.”

He was. Gentle. Careful. Patient. The kind of lover best reserved for a cold winter morning. He was the polar opposite of Bruce. Bruce attacked her with teeth, tongue, and hands. Held her. Pinned her and Clark down as if he had the superpowers to do so. A hot summer night. And yet somehow they met perfectly. They met and fit together like they belonged. They fitted around her; a vivid sensual storm of emotions, passions, and need. Of togetherness. She stood in the eye of that storm and marveled. Marveled at the beauty of these two men, at the dark reflection of each other burnt into their eyes, and the hunger which they kissed and touched each other. At which they kissed at touched her. At which she returned those actions.

Clark stripped the last of his clothes in a blur. Bruce pulled her underpants off and tossed them aside. They were naked. Sliding. Entangled with her lasso. And she was ready for them. She ached for them. Felt her pulse between her legs, the moisture down her legs, and how… open she was. She tossed back her head and swallowed a gasp as Clark investigated her. Kissed the side of her neck. Nipped. Harder. She purred encouragement.

Harder.

Bruce reached around and claimed Clark’s swollen member in his hand. Began pumping it slowly. Clark did her, Bruce did Clark… it was only fair she do him. She reached down, slid her fingers along Bruce’s muscular thigh, and up his shaft. She matched her tempo to that of Clark. Bruce’s lips peeled back in a hungry snarl.

Heat. Closeness. The ache… the rough primeval demand from her body for more. She began to gasp. Pant. Cry out as Clark reached deeper and deeper inside her with more and more fingers. His index scraped across her G spot and she yelped with pleasure. Ground her pelvis down onto the offending hand. Clark’s breathing skipped and staggered. But Bruce had other ideas.

Diana’s eyes snapped open as the Dark Knight hooked his hands under her knees and pulled her legs up over his shoulders. A look. She nodded. Clark withdrew his hand and Bruce entered. She moaned and felt her moisture flush red hot across him. Watched with fascination at the bunch, roll, and flex of the muscled body above her. At the dark pleasure flowing freely across Bruce’s face.

The Amazons never stigmatized or withheld the idea or practice of sex. Her first experiences had been on the hilltop overlooking the temple to Athena with a young warrior woman with long tangles of thick red hair. It had been simple, beautiful, and hot despite the decided chill of the night air. She had never known man until Steve Trevor crashed onto the island. He had loved her and made love to her in an honest, practiced, fashion. And it had been good. But not… gods… not like this. Never before had she seen the raw… hunger of man. Never had she felt that black desire so deeply and perfectly mirrored in her own desperate need. And never had she dreamed she would be here, wedged between two god like creatures, and sharing their bed.

“Diana.” Clark.

“Hh—hhuh?”

A whisper pressed into the side of her neck. “May I come in as well?”

“W-what?”

“Doable penetration,” he explained. Voice low, thick, powerful. “May I?”

She hesitated. Bruce nipped at her nipple. Timed his thrusts carefully. An art form.

“Diana?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Come on.”

Bruce smiled, reached between her legs, and guided Clark towards her. The Krytonian was nervous. He tested her opening, the small amount of space left by Bruce, and gently began easing himself in with each of Bruce’s thrusts. Diana gasped, clutched at Bruce’s arm hard enough to leave a bruise, and moaned aloud. It was too much. Her body couldn’t take it. They were pushing her open. Spreading her. Fucking her. Together.

“You’re so…” Clark began breathlessly.

“Tight,” Bruce finished for him.

Yes. No. Gods… how… how could she… but she could. In a flush of heat she felt herself adjust impossibly to allow them both. She felt both Clark and Bruce slide into her… deeper… harder… until they were both buried to the hilt. Hips rolled, breath synced, and they thrust into her again. The third time was faster. Stirred sounds from both men. Clark wrapped his hands around her hips, Bruce pinned down her arms, and together they began to pound into her. Hot. Tight. Wet. Full.

Diana moaned. Clark echoed. And Bruce fell over her shoulder to once again capture the other man in an open mouthed kiss. She saw the glitter of exchanged tongue, felt the touch of a powerful freezing gust of air as Clark exhaled, and the almost sinister curve of Bruce’s lips as he descended once more to devour Clark’s mouth. She felt her own smile flicker to life at the sight.

Gods she loved them. Loved how they loved each other. Even if it was too soon to say it. It was a simple love. Friendship driven by sex and the yawning need for a sense of togetherness. To belong. But it was theirs. It was theirs and she would cherish it for as long as it would last. And she would mourn it when it was gone. Because something so simple, so pure, and so true could never be forever. But for now… for now it was alive… for now it was everything… for now it was theirs.

She was almost there. Eyelids flickered closed, breath slid between clenched teeth, and hands clawed at the bed sheets around her. She felt herself build, topple, and overflow all at once.

The orgasm rushed her. Assaulted her. Toyed with the idea of departing only to flare white hot through her veins again. Again. She moaned, cried, and gasped under its brutal handling of her. From its savage out pour of pleasure so furious it was almost painful.

Bruce and Clark weren't far behind. Almost together. Bruce first. In a low, satisfied, growl. Clark in a powerful breathless moan that rattled the light fixtures and shook the windows in their frames. They both released into her, kissed, and then turned to kiss her.

Lips, tongue, and breath entwined. Eyelashes dusted cheeks, fingers slid slow loving circles on skin, and heartbeats felt through pressed chests. Fast. Strong. Together.

“I never want this to end,” Clark whispered.

She glanced at him, noticed her lasso still tangled around his shoulder, and gently touched the side of his face.

He looked down at her. Eyes open, honest, blue. “I love you.” Turned to Bruce. “And you.”

Bruce fingered the golden whip for a moment, grunted his assent, and leant forward to kiss the beaming Kryptonian. It wasn't like their last kisses. It was slow. Planned. Full of meaning. Of honesty. Of all that was unspoken. Of all that he, Bruce, would struggle to say.

It wasn't the first time they’d been together this way. But, Diana knew, it would be the one she remembered when it was all over.

“I never want this to end.”


	2. Chapter 2

She was pregnant.

Diana sat in the corner of the bathroom and stared at the small slim rod of white. On one end a simple blue stripe slid along the body of the test. Positive. Her third.

She wanted to deny it. Wanted to laugh it off as impossible and walk back into the body of the Watchtower with her head high. But she couldn’t. Because it made too much sense. Her… Bruce… and Clark. She was on medication but that wasn't a certainty and beyond that they’d never used any protection. It had never even occurred to her that they should. Stupid…

And now she was pregnant.

“Hera,” she whispered. “What do I do now?”


	3. Chapter 3

Clark raised his glass of wine unceremoniously and clinked it with Bruce’s.

“To secret identities,” he said with a smile.

“To secret identities,” Bruce echoed and tipped a healthy portion of the wine down his throat. “May they stay secret.”

“Or at least widely unknown,” Clark amended.

Bruce scowled.

They sat at a table together on the roof of a glittering tower. Most of the party had moved inside as the chill of the night descended but Bruce and Clark had remained upstairs enjoying the chance to speak freely out of costume. It was a fundraiser held by LexCorp. Bruce Wayne was expected to attend and had arrived in Metropolis under a hail of paparazzi. Paparazzi and the media were expected to sneak in. A feat the bumbling reporter from Daily Planet seemed to have managed with surprising ease.

“It is a shame Diana didn't establish a secret identity when she left her island,” Clark continued. “Imagine how much easier it would be.” He sighed. “I miss her when we do these things, Bruce. It… doesn't feel right coming out with you knowing she’s trapped up in the Watchtower.”

Bruce swirled his wine thoughtfully. Clark was right. It didn’t feel quite right just the two of them. It was almost as if they were cheating on her with each other. But, at the same time, he was slowly getting used to it. They hadn’t seen her in weeks even when they went to the Watchtower nor had she been in any recent activity within the League. His heart twisted with self loathing at the idea but… he was drifting away from her. And closer to Clark. Their trinity was still important to him but… if she couldn’t put the effort in… if she didn’t want to see them when she could… he had to fall out of love with her. Because, he feared, she had fallen out of love with them.

He looked up at Clark, wondering if he held the same dark superstitions… wondering if he would start to leave him too…

“I think she’s sick,” Clark said. “I heard she hasn’t left her quarters much and for a while she was vomiting.” He shook his head. “I didn’t think she could get sick. Her body is so much more robust than the average human.” A thoughtful look crossed his eye. “I have only ever been sick with Kryptonite poisoning.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Yes,” he flushed. “Sorry about that.” Clark hesitated. “But… maybe she’s been exposed to something she’s weak against. Perhaps we should go and see if she’s okay after we finish up here.”

“You think she’s stepped in some Wonder-nite?”

“Well,” he shrugged, “you never know. Some of the stuff these villains pull out of their sleaves. You’d think we were in a child’s TV show.”

“Or a comic.”

“Exactly,” Clark’s smile melted and he looked aside. “I’m worried about her, Bruce. J’onn said her thoughts were erratic and forward looking. He said she was thinking of going back to her island.”

Bruce, his wine glass held halfway toward his mouth, frowned and slowly lowered his drink back onto the table. “Oh.”

Clark wore nothing but a look of brotherly concern. But Bruce felt his heart wither. She was leaving them. She was leaving them and going somewhere were they couldn’t visit. Somewhere where the departure of their three way love affair would be permanent. He fought back a flush of grief. No. He would not show that. He had expected this. He had already started distancing himself from her. Isn't that what tonight was about? He spent time with Clark. Got to know what it would be like to be a couple and not a trinity. Perhaps he could grow to love it as much as he had loved their unconventional threesome.

But, he thought with a sudden fierceness, he wouldn't lose Clark as well. Diana had already made her choice. She was gone. Even if Clark didn't realise it yet. She was gone but he wouldn't let Clark slip through his fingers in the same way.

“I love you, Clark,” he said.

The Krytonian looked up at him in surprise and smiled nervously. It was so unlike Bruce to say something like that, let alone unprovoked, it set the man of steel on edge.

“I know. I love you too.”

Bruce reached forward, tangled his fingers in Clark’s tie, and pulled his face down so their lips met in a wine flavoured kiss. Clark returned it carefully. Bruce opened his mouth, slid his tongue into Clark’s, and growled softly.

It wasn't complete without Diana. It wasn't right. It wasn't whole.

But it was Clark.

And it was enough.


	4. Chapter 4

For a moment Clark let that kiss stretch. He let his lips respond, let his eyes sink closed and let the rich taste, smell, and presence of Bruce possess him. But something was wrong.

Bruce’s kiss wasn’t passionate. It was desperate. The growl in the back of his throat practiced and performed. The way he slipped his tongue possessively into his mouth a pale imitation of Bruce’s usual savage hunger. The tail end of that estranged ‘I love you’ still hanging like a strange smell in the air.

Clark rocked back, broke apart their lips, and looked at Bruce. His suit was sharp, trim, and tailored to make his worked muscle look like the square portions of a gym built body. Dark hair arched back from pale eyes, a strong newly shaven jaw framed a stiff assured mouth, and a small frown pleated his brow. Without his mask he didn’t look like Batman… but there was little of the playboy persona he wore downstairs in him at that moment.

“Bruce?”

“I want you, Clark,” Bruce said, voice husky and low. “Now.”

“Bruce. We’re at a party.”

“And you’re Superman,” Bruce whispered. “You could fly us out of here.”

Clark stared at him. “I thought you hated that.”

“It’d be worth it.”

“Bruce… where did this come from?”

Eyes darkened. “I want you.”

“But why now?” Clark insisted. “What brought it on? And what about Diana? We’ve never done it without Diana.”

Bruce glared at him for a moment. Eyes cold, angry, and coloured with that fleeting desperation he'd tasted on his tongue. Then, with a swiftness that surprised even him, Bruce downed the last of his wine, stood, and with a loud laugh called to the wait staff.

“Where is this party?” He looked at Clark. “I can’t keep all those girls from Gotham Gossip waiting. It’s not in my character.”

“Bruce?”

He left. Clark stared after him in shock. He left? He’d stood up and left? Why? Clark felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach as he tried to sift through all the possible ways he could have accidentally driven the man away. Was it about Diana? Had the two had a fight? It seemed unlikely but…

Clark abandoned the table and strode to the fire escape. When he was sure no one was looking he bolted towards the Watchtower fast enough so no lucky photographers would catch him in his evening dress.

He needed to talk to Diana. He needed to figure out what was wrong. He needed to know what had come between her and Bruce. Because their trinity was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Because he wouldn't… couldn't just let it die.

He found her outside her quarters with a tray of food normally reserved for the cafeteria. She started when he appeared, stared at his clothes, and opened her mouth to say something. He got in first.

“Bruce just left me alone at a dinner table,” he said bluntly. “Why?”

“Clark…” she rasped. “I don’t…”

“We were talking about you. He got upset. Why?”

“Clark,” she said shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“What did you say to him?” He pushed.

Diana looked stricken. “Nothing.”

Clark felt himself stiffen. “What is it then?”

“Nothing I…”

“Just something you can tell Bruce, but not me.”

“No I… I haven’t… he doesn’t know…”

“Then there is something.”

“It’s not…” she looked fallow, worn, and painfully pale. "It's not what you think."

“What is it?”

“Clark. I’m pregnant.”


	5. Chapter 5

It was over.

All of it.

Her. Clark. Bruce.

Their relationship.

Their trinity.

And all because she hadn't thought to make them wear condoms. All because she hadn't even considered the possibility of pregnancy. All because, even now, she knew she couldn't bring herself to back out of what was growing inside her.

What was going to change her, warp her body beyond recognition, and leave her with something she’d never thought she’d have.

A fetus.

A baby.

A child.

A person.

The small thing buried inside her, planted inside her by one of her lovers, was going to one day grow into a person.

A man or a woman.

A son or daughter.

Alive.

And despite herself – despite everything – she couldn't ignore that.

Even though she knew it would change everything. Everything the three of them had shared. Everything they could have had. Everything that a month ago she wished so furiously to last forever.

Everything.

Because how could they trust her after this? How could they be with her? How could they come together with a child? How when all their lives were so different already? How could they conform? How could they…

They couldn't.

It was over.

And it ended in three short words.

“Clark. I’m pregnant.”


	6. Chapter 6

He could hear it.

Around the noise of the operational Watchtower, through the distant rumble of a living planet below, and against the sounds of his own suddenly rapid breathing…

Two heartbeats.

Two heartbeats coming from one person.

“Diana,” he whispered. “I… I didn’t… I…”

“It’s okay, Clark,” the Amazon turned away from him with a worn, weary, look. “No body knows.”

She stepped into her room, walked slowly across the small sanitized space, and sat on the edge of her bed with her tray of food in her lap.

“But… it’s… it’s us…” Clark said as he drifted slowly after her. “It’s us… isn’t it?”

She looked at him. Eyes untelling.

“You, Bruce, and I,” he continued. “Us.”

A pause followed by a small, silent, nod.

But that was enough. More than enough. It was…

He could see it.

A tiny bundle of heat nestled to one side within the cup of Diana’s hips moved slowly within a mass of unrecognisable cells. A small, soft, spinal cord stood like the stem of a flower, and connected a heart to a head.

A heart he could hear.

Fragile and frantic.

Tempo at odds with the strong, solid, strums of Diana’s own beat yet somehow also unquestionably complementary.

“Bruce doesn't know?”

“No.”

She picked up a plastic fork and stabbed absently at the fruit salad in front of her.

“W-why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“I…” she sighed. “I don’t know, Clark. I never planned on this. I never thought… I never thought I would be…” she looked up at him, blue eyes desperate for his understanding. “I’m a warrior, Clark. I was never meant to bare the children. I was meant to fight. To defend mankind. To… I was never meant to… I was never…” she looked away and carefully wiped her eyes on the heel of her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“Of course.”

He glided across the room and settled down beside her, threw one arm over her shoulders, and carefully swept some hair from her face. Full, sensual, lips sat below the sharp sure line of her nose and above the crisp clear line of her jaw. Two blue eyes rested off the point of gently coloured cheekbones, framed by feathered black lashes, and overshadowed by a neat pair of expressive, arched, eyebrows.

“By God you’re beautiful.”

“You…” she stared at him in unmasked shock. “Don’t care?”

“I care! Of course I care! I…” he felt his lips bend in a nervous smile. “I know this has got to be hard for you, Diana. I’m not going to make it any harder. Whatever you decide, I’ll be here.”

She stared at him as if he’d just grown antlers.

“I mean it.”

“Clark…” her arms came up to wrap around his shoulders, slide fingers through his hair, and drag him forward into a crushing kiss.

It was simple, raw, and wet.

An open, honest, exchange.

A thank you spoken in a language that both knew couldn’t be misinterpreted between them.

Repeated as their lips separated in a husky, grateful, whisper.

“Thank you, Clark.” She pressed her forehead against his. “I don’t… I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve just been hiding and hoping… thank you.”

Clark held her and listened.

Listened to the soft sounds of her breath returning to normal.

Listened to the gentle shifting of her body as it prepared for its coming change.

Listened to two heartbeats coming from one person.

 

“We have to tell Bruce,” he murmured softly so he didn’t interrupt the beautiful, chaotic, duel rhythm coming from her body.

Diana stiffened.

“He has a right to know.”

“I know,” she said with a sigh. “I know.” A small pause. “Can we talk to him in the morning? After he’s eaten?”

Clark blinked. “Why?”

“He’s… less scary then.”

Clark laughed.

She had a point.


	7. Chapter 7

Bruce saw Clark first.

The alien circled around the house once before coming to hover outside his window with a polite knock on the glass. He wore rumbled remains of the evening wear from the previous night’s ball damaged from what looked like numerous high speed trips through the atmosphere, his hair was windswept back in a mess of defiant curls, and his face shone in a bright, tight, smile. 

Something was wrong.

He knew it the second he saw that smile.

It was confirmed as he saw Diana float down behind him. Despite her costume she looked nothing like the bold, brave, warrior woman he had come to know. Face fallow, eyes stricken, and hands clasped together as if in prayer. She looked for all the world like a criminal being taken to execution.

She was also so beautiful he…

These last weeks… these last weeks he’s spent trying to distance himself from her… trying to distance himself… trying to fall out of love… they all came crashing down the moment she looked up and met his gaze.

He loved her. He loved her with the same dark, deep, need as he loved the man hovering beside her despite…

He looked away.

Fuck.

“You don’t have to knock, Clark.”

The window opened and the pair swooped in to settle lightly on the carpet of the study. Bruce dropped the book he’d been reading and slowly stood to regard the pair; one behind a stiff mask and the other painted in raw, unguarded, guilt.

“Bruce, we need to talk to you about something.”

He stood very still. “What?”

“It’s… it’s important. Could we sit down first?”

Eyes flickered between the two. In a low growl. “Why?”

“It would be better if you… if we… were sitting down for this.”

And suddenly he knew. He knew why they were here, why Diana had been avoiding him, and why Clark barred his teeth in that ugly, fake, smile.

They were leaving.

Leaving him.

Bruce swallowed the bitter lump that threatened to rip from his throat and turned away.

Away from them.

Away from the beautiful fierce eyes of the Amazon Princess and away from the kind blue gaze of the last son of Krypton. Away from the woman, and the man, he loved.

He should have known.

Should have seen this coming.

He should have at least guessed that these two creatures of the sky, of the sun, would eventually fly away hand in hand and leave him, grounded, in their wake. Because, despite everything, they were alike and he… different.

And it shouldn’t matter.

It shouldn’t hurt.

They’d only been together for a few short months.

They’d only been…

“Bruce?”

“I don’t have time fore this,” he snapped. “Tell me what so god damned important and then get out of here.” He sent them a withering look. “I have work to do.”

A large, warm, hand landed on his shoulder.

He shoved it away. “Don’t touch me!”

Clark looked at him, hand held aloft, stunned. “Are… you alright, Bruce?”

“I’m fine,” he snarled.

“Did… did something happen last night? After I left?”

“No.”

“You’re acting…”

“I’m fine!”

“You’re not!” Clark accused. “Whenever you say that I know something is wrong.”

“I told you,” Bruce hissed. “I’m fine.”

The edge of his iris smoldered red. “Not now, Bruce. This isn’t the time.”

“What time is it then, Clark? If you know so—”

“I’m pregnant.”

“—much about me how…” Bruce stopped. Looked at Diana. “W-what?”

Her lips curled in a small, apologetic, smile. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re…” he glanced to Clark and back at her. “Are you sure?”

“I can see it, Bruce,” the Kryptonian confirmed softly.

“You...” he looked at Diana’s seemingly unchanged abdomen and then up to her face. She looked the same as usual. Her hair fell around her face in thick, dark, curls; her skin shone; and her eyes watched him between thick, curved, lashes. “You’re pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“With…?”

She frowned. “A baby, Bruce.”

He stared at her trying to… trying to make sense of…

“Bruce?” Clark called. “Are you alight?”

“I thought… I…” he pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead and sighed. “I thought you were leaving.”

Diana blinked and Clark let out a small, relieved laugh. Reached out and gently entwined their fingers before leaning forward and whispering in his ear. “Some ‘world’s greatest detective’ you are.”

A low, guttural, growl. “Don’t push it, Clark.”

Warm, encompassing, lips pressed against his; moved against his; opened his with the helpful tip of an unyielding indestructible tongue. Gentle. Clark was always gentle. Even during sex, when Bruce would bite his lips so hard his teeth would ache, when Bruce would demand him in a heavy hungry open mouth, and when Bruce would attack him with an invading tongue, Clark always responded with an assertive, safe, submission. A submission flavoured by the knowledge that it was entirely voluntary. That if he wanted to Clark could pin him down, hold him, and have him. That there was nothing Bruce could do that could stop him if he did.

Clark eased back and gently stroked the side of his face. “It’ll be a lot harder than that to get rid of us, Bruce.”

“I’m sorry.” Diana approached slowly. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been avoiding you but it’s not you, Bruce. It’s not… I’ve just been terrified to tell you. To tell you both.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “And now… I’m sorry. I know you trusted me, and I know I let you down, and I know this is… probably too much for such a young relationship… but I… I’m keeping the pregnancy.” She opened her eyes and looked at them. “I’ve thought about it and I can’t…. I just can’t end it. I’m sorry.”

Clark moved to take her hand and pull her towards them. He shared a second kiss with her. Slower, softer, and sprinkled with smaller, secret, kisses buried within the first.

“It’s okay.”

Diana sighed gratefully as their lips parted and reached, almost sleepily for Bruce.

He edged back.

She stopped, stiffened, and stared. Stared at this rejection. This denial. But Bruce couldn’t see her then. All he could see was…

A baby.

Clark, Diana, and him.

A baby.

How?

How would they raise it? Between secret identities, vigilante activity, and the Justice League? Around saving the world, writing newspapers, and drunkenly snaring strange lips as a Playboy billionaire?

What about when the Justice League went off world? Who would babysit on short notice? What if they couldn’t find anyone? Who would stay behind?

How were they going to hide the pregnancy from the media? How would they keep the child secret? How would they keep it safe?

What if Clark was the father? A Kryptonian unhindered by kryptonite or magic? Part demigod and part super powered alien?

What if he was the father? What if he died?

What if they all died? They risked themselves everyday within the league. What if Luthor, Cheetah, Joker, or any of the rogues had a lucky day?

What if they died and the child was alone…?

Diana’s fingers gently slid along his face, smoothed out the wrinkles, and carefully traced the line of his features.

The lasso bumped against his hand and he surrendered to it with a pained sigh.

“How? How are we going to do this?”

“I don’t know,” Diana whispered. “I don’t know but…” a small, sad, smile. “I’m so sorry. Bruce. I’m so sorry. I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore. I understand.” Softly. “But I still love you. I’ll always love you.”

Diana’s kiss, as usual, was fierce. But the usual fight, the usual challenge, was gone from her lips replaced by a starved mournful desperation that took him by surprise. She tasted him, touched him, held him as if…

She was kissing him goodbye.

“No,” he broke the contact, reached up, and took hold of her face in his hands. Large, sharp, blue eyes blinked up at him in shock. “I’m not done with you,” he growled. Glared into those eyes. “I’m not done with you two yet.”

“Bruce…” her gaze never left his. “Bruce I…”

He crushed his lips into hers. Kissed her. Kissed her not in goodbye, not in farewell, and not in regret. Kissed her like he was dominating her. Demanding her. Kissed her until she responded. Until they shared in a raw, passionate, bonding and there was nothing… no wall, no uncertainty, no doubt… between them.

Because there couldn’t be.

Not in this.

Not now.


	8. Chapter 8

Diana was already changing.

Small – impossibly small- changes that she herself probably didn’t even notice.

Tiny shifts in preparation for the bigger change already underway.

Her body was heated and warm to the touch, her skin flushed and reddened over the arch of her nose and along the edge of her lip, and her hair was richer, lusher, and curled slightly at the ends. Her nails had extra calcium in them, as did her teeth, and her bones. The cells in her breasts were already starting to swell and grow.

He slid his tongue through the valley between those two breasts, tasted the strange hormones rising with the heat off her skin, and reached up to cradle the soft, sweet smelling, flesh in his palms; to feel the extra weight, to run his thumbs across the slightly too red nipples, and to hear the smallest of breaths catch almost painfully in the back of her throat.

“Kal…”

“Shh…”

Began licking, sucking, and nipping at her neck. At the rich – impossibly rich – taste of her skin, the hormones, and woman underneath. The woman who was now gasping, shuddering, and arching her body into him. That hot, amazing, beautiful body that carried within it the tiny – impossibly tiny – beating heart of new life.

Of their child.

His, hers, and…

A heavy, scarred arm landed on his shoulders, tangled fingers in his hair, and pulled his head roughly back. Lips were crushed against his in a deep, domineering, kiss. A kiss that penetrated him, tasted him, and left with a low, satisfied, growl that sent a shiver through his body.

Bruce.

Dark, dangerous, and dominant.

Bruce.

He was pushed back down and he willingly fell back into the strange scents and burning skin of the woman, tasted her full lips and flushed skin, and buried his face into the crook where shoulder joins neck.

He knew Bruce was watching.

Could see him, like a shadow, out the corner of his eye.

Steel blue eyes caught in the moonlight spilling through the open window, the hollow lines of his cheeks and chiselled features held the darkness, and… there… Clark could see the glint of light off his tongue as he tasted his own lips.

He watched - Bruce watched - as Diana wrapped her legs around Clark’s waist and reached between his legs to help guide him into her. Warm, wet, and welcoming. He groaned and rocked into her. Slowly at first. Then faster.

And still Bruce watched. Watched with Batman’s predatory stare. Watched as Clark took Diana to first one climax and then a second. Watched as they touched, kissed, fucked…

Approached.

Clark felt a thrill of anticipation as he saw the movement, as he heard the soft sounds of bare feet against the carpeted floor, and as he smelt the human scent of the other man’s own desire.

Bruce’s chest collided with his back, his hips ground his hardened member against Clark’s inner thigh, and two arms wrapped possessively around him. One across his chest, and the other down between his legs; roughly massaging his balls as he thrust into Diana.

And… god… it was perfect… it was beautiful… tangled between the limbs, the bodies, of his lovers… and it was almost too much… almost so much he…

Bruce bit down on his shoulder and he came with a cry that melted into a deep, lasting, moan.

Diana arched up and slid her tongue across his lips as if stealing a quick taste of the sound, testing, before capturing it all in an open mouthed kiss.

They stayed like that for a moment.

Together.

Before Bruce leant back, took hold of his hip, and unceremoniously rolled him away. Clark sprawled on the mattress beside Diana and watched as Bruce took up his position between her thighs and entered with one sure rock of his hips.

Bodies moved, breath exchanged, and hips ground together with a bunch and roll of pronounced muscle.

They were beautiful.

Perfect.

The defined curves of his Amazon Princess overlain with the scarred skin of his Dark Knight.

All he could do was watch and marvel.

Because Bruce couldn’t see any of those tiny changes; couldn’t smell or taste the hormones on her skin, couldn’t feel the temperature of the blood in her skin, or hear the second heartbeat buried within her abdomen.

But somehow… even without that knowledge… he knew.

He knew how precious the woman beneath him was and also how different from the last time they were together. Clark could see it in the attention he showed her lips, in the slow deliberate roll of his hip, and the hand sliding firmly but reservedly down the contours of her muscle to touch her abdomen.

He knew.

Even if he couldn’t sense it.

He knew.

And as long as he knew they could get through this.

As long as he knew, nothing could come between them.


	9. Chapter 9

“I’m not raising a child in Gotham.”

“Clark…” she tried.

“I’m not.”

A low growl. “What’s wrong with Gotham?”

“Gotham has the worst crime rate in the whole country,” Clark began. “It is home to some of the most violent gangs in the world, has more homeless than both New York and Metropolis combined, has massive divides in social castes, has terrible air quality, and in this last year alone experienced twenty seven super criminal terrorist attacks.”

A pause.

“This year Metropolis was almost completely destroyed by an army of hostile aliens,” Bruce countered. “Twice.”

“Oh come on. You can’t seriously argue that Gotham is a better place to raise a child than Metropolis.”

“I was raised in Gotham.”

Clark looked at Bruce for a moment, studied him, and turned back to Diana. “I’m not raising a child in Gotham,” he said again.

She sighed.

They’d only just begun to wade through the sea of questions that this pregnancy arose and already they were stuck. Not for the first time she felt a shiver of fear as she reflected on the idea that perhaps their lives were just too different to make this work. That parenthood between the just couldn’t work.

It was Bruce’s question. His estranged ‘how?’ rising up to haunt them.

How do you raise a child around superhero identities? Around three completely different lives? Around… everything? How?

She sank into her chair and raked her hand through her hair. This was going to be a long night.


	10. Chapter 10

For the first time in his life he didn’t know what would happen next.

Bruce nuzzled the strip of short black hair between Diana’s legs and breathed in the rich, earthy, scent of her sex.

He didn’t know how their three way parenthood would work, he didn’t know how they were going to create something around their estranged lives, and he didn’t know what his role in all of this would be.

His tongue flicked carefully at the tip of her cleft and the body above him shivered in anticipation.

He didn’t know how he could reconcile his mission around the concept of parenthood, around the idea of their now extended relationship, or even how they could safely bring a child into the world together.

A small, soft, whisper of want spilt haphazardly from her lips and her hips rocked forward to grind against his tongue.

He didn’t know if this – if they – would work.

He slipped one finger into her and felt the warm clench of muscled walls tighten and then welcome the intrusion. Began to move that finger against her in time with his tongue.

“Just… just a bit…” she ground down onto his hand and he adjusted to fit another finger, and another knuckle inside her. “Oh… fuck… Bruce.”

He scraped his fingers against her wall in a firm, consistent, motion and matched the rhythm with his tongue against the small, hooded, shape of her clitoris. Slowly, he picked up speed.

She clenched, moved, and flexed around his fingers; dripped into his hand; and gasped through a series of broken sentences urging him on, promising him how good he was at this, how good it felt, and how crazy she was about him.

He applied more pressure.

Listened with satisfaction as she yelped with surprise and thrust against him.

He liked this… liked reducing one of the most powerful members of the Justice League to a begging, pleading, mess of pleasure. Liked knowing he could do it and knowing she knew he could do it to her.

He liked being in control.

Bruce worked her until she came in a twitching, messy, scream of pleasure. But the great thing about women, he knew, is once they had achieved one orgasm the second was half price. He doubled the pressure, the speed, and added a third and fourth finger into the fray. Felt her thighs tighten around him in surprise and the weary shiver of her breath as he already started working her up towards a second peak.

She rolled, carrying him with her, and reversed their positions so she held herself above him and he lay on his back across the tangled sheets and firm body of the mattress. He paused for a moment and she began to ride him; to hump and grind against his face in hot, frantic, need.

As she did so he felt Clark take him into his mouth.

Bruce began to lick her again, to push into her, and scrape the hook of his fingers against her now prominent G spot. Drew back to suck in a sharp breath as he felt Clark slide his tongue from between his balls, among the underside of his shaft, and up to lick playfully at his tip before descending again to repeat the process. Slight firmly. Slightly faster.

He growled.

Diana purred.

Clark chuckled.

Bruce gritted his teeth and returned to Diana, worked to bring her to her second orgasm even as Clark fell on him again… and again… and… ah… he bucked one against that indestructible mouth and felt Clark’s lips curl.

A hand wrapped around Bruce’s base behind his balls and – in one smooth motion – Clark swallowed him whole. His throat relaxed around him, tongue resting against the underside of his shaft, and lips tight… fuck!

He should of… should have known… should of at… ah… at least… ah… fuck.

Diana laughed seeing his reaction and tangled her fist in his hair to urge him on, press his mouth back against the peak of her opening, and work his fingers inside her. He returned to his task with a newfound savagery; attacked her in a desperate need to try and distract himself from what was happening below.

Clark was vibrating.

His tongue gyrating impossibly fast around his cock.

His breath coming in hot, then cold, and then hot again.

And he should have guessed this would happen. He’d seen him do this to Diana. Watched in fascination as he moved so fast he looked like he was ink smudged on a page. Watched Diana’s explosive reaction.

He should have known Clark would try it on him.

And he should have known that when he did… it would be like this.

Almost… too much.

He didn’t know what would happen next.

A wave of pleasure crashed into him, blindsided him, and left him gasping into the warm wet folds of the woman above him. That small action pushed her over the edge and her cry rang out in a single, beautiful, note.

He didn’t know how this would work.

Clark swallowed, stroked his hip, and began kissing up his body. Nipped hungrily at twitching muscle, sweaty skin, and heaving chest. Marked him.

But, for the first time in his life, he didn’t care. Because as long as it was with these two, whatever happened, it had to be good.


	11. Chapter 11

Clark held her hair back and gently traced Kryptonian symbols across her shoulder blades and down the arch of her spine.

She heaved one last time, spat, and sat up with an apologetic smile.

“It was a nice breakfast, Clark, I promise.”

“Oh I know. You liked it so much you decided to taste it for a second time.”

She chuckled, rubbed her forehead, and pushed herself to her feet. Walked outside and slumped into one of the deckchairs. The air was hot, crisp, and flavoured with the natural spice of dry earth and produce.

They were in Kansas on the Kent farm. While the house was small and the fields humble she had to admit she liked it. There was a kind of peace to be found in the flat, cloudless, horizon, that couldn’t be found in the stark walls of the Watchtower, in the sweeping gardens of the manor, or even in the rocky shores of Paradise Island.

“Do you still want this?”

She looked up.

Saw Bruce.

Saw the offered plate.

Snatched it.

Pickles seemed to be the only thing she could keep down in the mornings nowadays and while she had never cared for the food before she couldn’t get enough of them. And ice cream. They should get some ice cream. Would ice cream go with pickle? Or chilli rice? Hera. Did they have any chilli rice?

She opened her mouth to ask.

“We have pickles, pork, potatoes, apples, turkey, leftover pasta, lemonade, corn, cheese, yogurt, jelly beans, and a green vegetable stir fry,” Bruce informed her with a growl. “If you want anything else send the one with super speed.”

“I heard that.”

“You hear everything.”

“The lemonade,” she interrupted. “Does it have ice?”

“Not with this archaic fridge but we do have a Kryptonian on hand if you want some.”

A pause.

“Please?”


	12. Chapter 12

It was a month and a half later when Clark rolled over in bed, stretched in the morning sunlight spilling through the window, and looked across at Diana and Bruce tangled together in a mess of limbs in the middle of the mattress.

 

Bruce was still asleep and wouldn’t wake or rise for another four hours at least, Diana was blinking sleepily up at the ceiling as she slowly rose up from a deep dreaming, and curled inside her, against the inner cup of her left hip, was… a girl.

 

Clark looked in amazement at the small, but important, change that had happened overnight.

 

Hidden to the rest of the world, safe within the warmth of her mother, their child had become their daughter.

 

He felt something inside him give as she wriggled, rolled, and resettled against the natural bedding within Diana’s womb. She – _she!_ – was sleeping in. Just like Bruce.

 

And she was the most beautiful thing Clark had ever seen.

 

Up until that moment he had watched the changes in Diana; watched the tiny beating ball of warmth grow into a body, head, and arms, with a feeling of overwhelming wonder. He had marvelled at the ability of a few cells to grow so rapidly and with such skill to construct the tiniest person he had ever seen. He had watched, fascinated, as those cells divided and multiplied with an urgency lost on the small, wriggling, being they were apart of.

 

But it wasn’t until that morning when he rolled over in bed, stretched in the sunlight, and looked back at those that shared his bed did he realise that what he was looking at was his family.

 

And there, in the core of his family, sat a girl who liked to sleep in.

 

And who had just stolen his heart.

 

Up until that moment he had been many things. Amazed, fascinated, in awe… but he hadn’t been in love.

 

“What are you smiling about?” Diana mumbled as she shrugged Bruce off, sat up, and ran her finger through her hair. “I feel like shit.”

 

“It’s a girl.”

 

“What?”

 

“It’s a girl.”

 

Diana stared at him, understanding slowly creeping across her face, and one hand falling to rest against the slight swell of her abdomen. Behind her Bruce rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow, suddenly awake.

 

“Are you sure?” The woman whispered. “You know how development works. It could…”

 

“I know. I’ve been to sex ed and I have an eidetic memory,” he reminded her. “It’s a girl.”

 

“Oh.”

 

A pause.

 

A breath.

 

A moment in time as they all stilled and marvelled in silence at this strange piece of information.

 

It didn’t change anything.

 

It wasn’t important.

 

Not really.

 

But… they had a daughter.

 

It wasn’t until hours later, as they sat around the small wooden table in Clark’s apartment and ate a hotchpotch breakfast from multicoloured plates, did Bruce look up and ask the question.

 

“Diana… is she a princess?”


	13. Chapter 13

“By Amazon law no man can hold a place within our ruling body, nor may he serve the people in higher office.”

 

“Or set foot on Amazon land,” Clark added miserably.

 

“But it’s a girl,” Bruce insisted. “Does that mean she’s next in line for the throne?”

 

Diana looked stricken. “I… Amazons are conceived during the bi-centurial festival to the gods where upon—”

 

“Is she, Diana?”

 

“I… don’t know. I don’t know if the Amazon people will accept someone born outside… born of man.”

 

“But what if they do?” Clark pleaded. “We can’t see her on the island, Diana.”

 

“Will they insist upon raising their princess on the island?” Bruce muttered.

 

“I don’t know,” Diana said again. “I don’t. This has never happened before. I don’t even know if they’ll accept her as an Amazon, or even someone with Amazon heritage, let alone as their princess.” A deep breath. “And if they do I don’t know if they’ll insist upon her staying on the island.” A pucker of her brow. “I don’t even know if the immorality spell would affect her if she were to stay there.”

 

“She can’t,” Clark said. “She’s ours too. I don’t care if she’s a princess and I don’t care what they say. We have a right to see her.”

 

The Kryptonian’s eyes flickered down to Diana’s abdomen as if putting weight to his words by looking at his daughter still concealed to the rest of them.

 

“A princess serves her people,” Diana whispered. “If she’s…”

 

“No, Diana,” Bruce growled. “He’s right.”

 

She looked up at him. Torn.

 

“We have a right to know her.” Angrily. “We have more right than a distant nation that doesn’t even know of her existence.”

 

A stiff, uncomfortable, silence.

 

“You’re right,” Diana said softly. “I know you’re right.”

 

Clark sighed in relief and slumped into his chair.

 

“But I won’t leave her ignorant of her heritage,” she continued. “If the Amazons refuse to accept her that is their folly and in doing so they will lose my allegiance as well. But I will not be the one to conceal and or deprive my daughter of her birthright.” A fierce flicker danced across her eyes. “I have seen the struggle it was for Arthur to adapt to his own culture having been raised outside it. I will not subject my daughter to that fate.”

 

“This isn’t the same,” Clark moaned.

 

“Your parents didn’t send you adrift in space without first giving you all they could of Krypton,” she snapped. “They didn’t close the curtains on your heritage.”

 

The alien looked down, shame faced.

 

Bruce sighed. She was right.

 

There was only one way out of this.

 

“You have to go to Paradise Island,” he muttered. “You have to talk to them. Tell them.”

 

“Bruce,” Clark stared at him as if he’d been stabbed in the back. “She can’t! You know the rituals they have to go through. The games, the festivals, the… She’ll be gone for at least two weeks. Probably more.”

 

Bruce glared at him.

 

“Her grandmother has a right to know of her existence too, Clark.”

 

“I… I know I…”

 

Bruce knew.

 

Bruce knew Clark had been watching the growth of their daughter since he first laid eyes on her weeks before. He knew Clark saw her, heard her, and knew her in ways not even Diana could. He knew Clark was hopelessly in love with her.

 

But Bruce thought of the twin graves in the Wayne cemetery, a dead planet, and two simple tombstones on the hill at the Kent farm. Diana’s mother was the only family beyond them this child – their daughter – had.

 

He didn’t give a damn about her heritage, her birthright, or her royalty.

 

But, by god, he cared about that.


	14. Chapter 14

Clark didn’t mind spending time with Bruce.

 

He didn’t.

 

But he missed Diana. He missed the ease of conversation between them and the way that conversation would flow naturally effortlessly onto Bruce. He missed the warmth of her body and knowing he could hold her hand just a bit tighter within his own. He missed the way she made Bruce look up from his work and… He missed the duel heartbeat that had become the soundtrack of his life.

 

The cave, the world, everything, seemed quiet. Wrong.

 

He knew it was just the magic blocking his hearing. Knew both her and their daughter were safe with her people. Knew she would be back as soon as she could…

 

But he missed her.

 

Something knocked against his head and he blinked in surprise. Caught the object in question. Looked up in shock.

 

“Did you just throw a baterang at me?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I asked you three times,” he growled. “Higher.”

 

“Oh.”

 

He pulled the batmobile up another inch. “Better?”

 

The man slid back under the vehicle without a word.

 

Clark sighed.

 

He didn’t mind spending time with Bruce. He didn’t mind helping him or being with him. He especially didn’t mind being able to watch the flex of muscle as he wriggled further under the car or hearing that soft, satisfied, sound as he got something right.

 

“Bruce?”

 

“Not now.”

 

But he missed Diana.


	15. Chapter 15

Diana lay carefully across the bed and pulled the covers over her swollen belly. It was the first night she’d slept alone in months and despite the warm musk of the two warrior women she had seen kissing in the hallway, the soft spiced scent of the desserts still lingering on her lips, and the sounds of the continued celebrations roll in the open window, she felt isolated and alone.

 

With a sigh she blew out her candle and settled into the soft silken sheets, breathed in the sweet smell of flowers, and closed her eyes against the bright, beautiful, stars winking at her through the open window.

 

It didn’t help.

 

She couldn’t sleep.

 

Not without her men.

 

She kept her eyes closed and imagined the warm reassuring weight of Clark as he shifted on the mattress, his scent – so alien and yet so familiar – filling the air, and the sound of his soft and steady breathing as he drifted towards sleep.

 

She imagined Bruce. She imagined her fingers moving across the buckle of old scar tissue, the sight of his eyes flashing icy blue in the dim light of the bedroom, and the taste of his lips as he took her jaw and pulled her forward into a long hungry kiss.

 

And Clark… Clark would move then. He would come to press behind her, run his strong sure hands along the contours of her body, and bury his face in her hair with a soft moan of pleasu…

 

Her eyes opened.

 

Outside the music had slowed. The soft lulling melody of a flute rose above the slow heavy beat of the drums. The sound was beautiful, rich, interrupted only by the faint gasps and sighs of pleasure from the corridor as the two warrior women shared in each other. Above the stars seemed to have developed an almost pinkish hue as they made their slow progression across the sky.

 

The night belonged to lovers only hers were far away, through a magical wall, and most likely under the canopy of Gotham’s smog cloud.

 

Perhaps Bruce had let Clark come on patrol and they were flirting together through the streets and skies of the Bat’s city. Perhaps they were tumbling through one of their conversations on numbers, chemicals, and all things that put her to sleep. Perhaps they were lying awake in bed thinking of her, unable to sleep.

 

She considered and rejected all these ideas in turn.

 

Perhaps… perhaps they were having sex.

 

Outside the flute sunk an octave and the drum beats became slightly faster. The two women were almost moaning. Catching themselves, on the brink, before the sound fell from their lips.

 

Diana slid her hands between her thighs.

 

They were having sex.

 

Clark. Bruce.

 

Right now.

 

It was slow, raw, and the air was filled with strangled gasps as Bruce pushed into… no. Clark. As Clark pushed into Bruce. Filled him with a deliberate, timed, roll of hip. Tasted him with a slow, steady, touch of tongue to the back of the man’s neck. Held him, even as Bruce tried to push back, buck, and speed up the process.

 

They’d never done this before. Not like this. Nor did either of them expect Clark to top when they’d fallen into bed together earlier that night. But he had and it was… good. So good.

 

And slow.

 

So slow Bruce was clawing at the mattress below him, his usual stern growl and hungry intensity shattered to be replaced by a frayed and frantic need that came to a crest, spiked, with a broken cry every time Clark pushed into him.

 

Diana paused to detail how exactly his face would look in that moment. Sweat slicking his hair back, mouth open, and cheeks flushed like she’d never seen them before. It would start as a flinch. A flinch that would keep going; take apart what little composure he had; crumble his features and end in something between a cry of pleasure and a desperate sob as pleasure was denied.

 

Close. So close.

 

He just needed a little more.

 

But his hand were occupied clutching the mattress and he couldn’t seem to move them. Couldn’t seem to control anything his body is doing at that moment.

 

“Clark…”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Clark… ah… please…”

 

Clark would hold a moment. Just a moment-

 

“Please…”

 

-before he surrendered to Bruce. To the call for help. To the idea of the indomitable Batman bent over and begging. To the man he loved held in his arms.

 

Diana stifled a gasp on her pillow as she rubbed furiously at the engorged clitoris between her legs, felt a trickle of wet spill down her thighs, and listened as the music outside built into a sharp teasing climax. As the women outside cast aside their inhibitions and cried out freely under each others touch.

 

It didn’t matter. Because right now… right now… Clark would be reaching around and taking Bruce in his hand. And now he was holding him. Stroking him. Bringing him to climax in time with the now faster rhythm of his hips.

 

“Oh fuck,” Diana whispered as her body shook through a sudden, sharp, orgasm. “Oh… oh…” she rubbed herself harder and imagined Clark and Bruce coming together, crying out together, and crying out with her. “Oh… fuck!” The second flash of pleasure hit her seconds after the first. Longer. Lasting. Furious and so fucking _good_.

 

Good and made better by the intimate knowledge of her two lovers. Of how their faces looked – really looked – as they were rushed, assaulted, by the pleasure of their bodies. Of how Clark would smile, stroke the hair from his eyes, and lie down beside Bruce. Of how Bruce would collapse against the bed, wipe the sweat from his face, and dip effortlessly and easily towards sleep even as the larger man pulled him into his arms before falling asleep himself.

 

The music had stopped, the two women shared broken declaration of love around exhausted kisses, and Diana slowly closed her eyes and followed her lovers towards heat touched dreams.

 

Yes, she decided firmly, that was what they were doing right now.

 


	16. Chapter 16

“Bruce,” Clark touched his shoulder.

 

Bruce shrugged him off.

 

“Bruce… I’m sorry I… I didn’t realise…”

 

He spoke in a growl usually reserved for the lowest kind of criminal. “Go to sleep, Clark.”

 

“You’re not seriously going to be angry with me over this are you?”

 

He hugged the sheet tighter and stared resolutely into the darkness of the bedroom.

 

“I’ll get you a new one, I promise.”

 

Silence.

 

Clark sighed and slumped down into the bed beside him. “I don’t get what so special about that giant dinosaur toy. I’ve seen tyrannosauruses you know and they don’t look like that. ”

 

Voice dangerous. “Go to sleep, Clark.”

 

“Fine.” The man snapped. “I will. I just hope Diana’s having a better time than us.”


	17. Chapter 17

The night before Diana returned from Paradise Island Bruce was infected with alien nanotechnology after infiltrating a primary processor of Braniac’s core system during the AI’s most recent attempt on the planet.

 

The tiny machines pierced his armour, flowed like debris down a stream in his blood, and attached onto his spinal cord in an attempt to take control of his motor functions. But he was Batman. And Batman didn’t get controlled. He produced a chemical injection from his belt and quickly paralysed himself thus putting his skills, and the kryptonite he carried, safely out of play.

 

Removing the nanotechnology proved tricker.

 

Tricky enough that he spent the next few days strapped to a bed in the Watchtower on a specialized dialysis that used microscopic magical magnetics and a filter he’d designed based on data from one of Clark’s crystals. The ordeal was made tricker again due to the fact that the Watchtower’s systems had no connection to the bat-computer and the other League members gave mediocre updates and reports at best.

 

He would have to rectify that.

 

When Diana returned and heard what had happened she flew straight up to the space station with a nervous Clark in tail.

 

It was the first time Diana had been to the Watchtower in months and as she walked in, dressed in the blue and red robes of an Amazon princess, adorned with a Spartan complex of golden jewellery, and undeniably pregnant, everything stopped.

 

Everyone stopped.

 

And then started again in fast forward.

 

Whispering.

 

Exclaiming.

 

Speculating.

 

The gossip reached Bruce before the woman herself. Part of him loved that. Loved how impulsive she could be. How fiercely defiant and unashamed she was.

 

“You shouldn’t have come up here.”

 

“They would have found out one way or another,” Diana brushed away his words as she entered. “I prefer it like this than in an official announcement.”

 

Bruce looked at her. She was as beautiful as when she left.

 

Her skin tanned by the sun touched seasons of her island, hair wild and rich and adorned with gold laced braids, and the exotic wrap around dress framed the ever growing swell of her body.

 

“We missed you.”

 

She sat down on the foot of his bed and looked at the blood filled cords attaching him to the machines.

 

“Will you be alright?”

 

“Yes.”

 

He smelt the exotic perfume spice of Thamyscira clinging to her skin. It wafted from her with every shift of fabric. Every flick of hair. He could almost taste it…

 

Clark entered.

 

“Well?”

 

Diana sighed. “She’s a princess.”

 

“Is that good or bad?” Clark queried.

 

“She will spend time on Paradise Island,” she supplied. “She must. She must be raised to know the Amazon people as her own.”

 

The alien scowled. “How much time? How long? Will we be able to see her?” Tugged at the corners of his cape. “God, Diana, couldn’t you sort something out?”

 

The woman straightened. “I did. You can go with her.”

 

A pause.

 

“They’re allowing men onto the island?” Bruce asked softly.

 

“Well… at first they didn’t want to but then mother talked to the council and we had you two declared honorary women.”

 

Both men blinked.

 

“And Amazons by marriage.”

 

“By marriage?” Clark croaked.

 

“Yes. As a princess I am entitled to choose more than one consort to be my wife.”

 

“You’re…” understanding dawned on the kryptonian’s face. “We’re your wives.”

 

“Only by Amazon law and, technically, not yet,” she clarified. “We’ll need to wait till the end of the harvest for the ceremony, you two will need to be welcomed as new sisters, and…” her cheeks coloured and lip curled in a small smile, “well… I need your consent.”

 

Both men stared at her as if she’d just grown horns.

 

“I would go down on one knee but my back has been torture.”

 

“You’re proposing?” Bruce muttered.

 

“I… yeah…”

 

Silence.

 

“Look…” she held up her hands. “I know… I know this isn’t ideal but it was the best I could do. She’ll only be there a couple of months a year, you’ll be able to see her, and this whole marriage thing is just legal.” She looked between them and took a deep, steadying, breath before continuing. “Once you’re Amazons you’ll have free access of the island whenever you wish and all rights as a citizen.”

 

Neither man spoke.

 

“This was hard to do and you’ve got to appreciate while the council isn’t bending over backwards they are making some… pretty extreme leniencies for us.”

 

Nothing.

 

“If you don’t want to I understand. There is nothing official yet but…”

 

“I do.”

 

Her eyes met Bruce’s.

 

“You… do?”

 

“It is the traditional affirmative response to a marriage proposal,” he informed her dryly.

 

“I… oh…” her cheeks deepened to a darker shade of red. “I knew that.”

 

Both looked at Clark.

 

He swore, paced, and ran a hand through his hair. “Um… okay… I never thought someone would ask me to be their wife…”

 

“It’s just legal,” Diana assured him. “And it’s only legal to the Amazons. Here it’ll just it is now.” She stepped forward and took hold of Clark’s arm. Met his gaze. “I swear if this doesn’t work out between us I’ll stay legally married to you two to give you the right to see her when she’s on the island.” Looked over at Bruce. “You’re her fathers. As far as I’m concerned you have that right.”

 

Clark swore again.

 

“If you accept I’ve asked that they not call you princesses.”

 

Bruce felt the corner of his mouth edge up. “Thanks.”

 

“Alright,” Clark said and rubbed his temple. “Alright. I do.”

 

“Of course he does!”

 

Flash stood in the doorway.

 

“A free ticket whenever you want to an island full of near naked women? Heck, call me a princess and sign me up.”

 

The rest of the League spilled from the corridor behind him clearing having been listening. Bruce scowled. For someone who claimed to have super hearing Clark wasn’t much of a watchman. A bit of warning would have been nice.

 

Too late.

 

They knew.

 

And like Diana had said… they would have found out one way or another. Perhaps it was best it happened when he was tied down. Couldn’t hit.

 

“Why didn’t you tell us you three were dating?”

 

“How far along is it?”

 

“Is it a treesome? A… eh… thuple?”

 

“Who’s the father? I mean, the _real_ father?”

 

“Holy hell. Congrats guys.”

 

“Who’s the unicorn?”

 

“Did you say it was a girl?”

 

“Hot _damn!_ ”

 

“You’re all together? Three?”

 

“What’s her name?”

 

“Isn’t that kind of gay? Or do you two not… you know?”

 

“I’ve always wanted to be the best man. Can I be best man?”

 

“Idiot, they’re honorary women now. There is no best man. Only bridesmaids. Lots and lots of sexy Amazon bridesmaids.”

 

“Do you… take turns?”

 

“Newsflash. You’re together, your getting married, and you’re having a baby… isn’t this all a bit fast?”

 

“Can I be an honorary woman too?”

 

“The gossip magazine’s heads would explode if they found out.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter isn't my best writing. I promise I'll do better! Hope you enjoyed it all the same. Love to hear what you guys think. :D


	18. Chapter 18

Clark hated nights like these.

 

Outside the world whispered dark promises, screams were stifled before he could pinpoint the country they echoed from, and a billion people snarled ugly worlds. Somewhere nearby a little girl was singing Happy Birthday to herself under her bed sheets, a man bragged about all the people he’d killed, and a couple had sex without once making a sound.

 

He heard an old man die alone with a broken off sentence, he heard the nasal chatter of two women as they carelessly degraded a third, and somewhere far away a mother struck her child with an audible, ugly, snap. The four hundredth and sixty first since he’d woken up, unable to fall back asleep.

 

It was an ugly, twisted, night void of any natural disaster or supervillian attack; of anything he could change.

 

But, outside, it was the same as any other night.

 

The only difference was he couldn’t ignore it.

 

He couldn’t ignore the outside world because if he did he would have to focus on what was happening inside.

 

Inside, Bruce was having a nightmare.

 

Clark gritted his teeth together and forced himself to listen to the world; to the thousand idle death threats, the hundreds of secrets spilling from behind closed doors, and the thousands of unhappy people. He tried to pick out voices he knew from the mass, tried to find heartbeats and happiness, or even just a single life to listen to instead of half a trillion.

 

But it was too loud, too much, and too many.

 

He closed his eyes and buried his head in the pillow.

 

Bruce was one.

 

Just one.

 

Yet somehow he seemed so much louder than all of the rest put together.

 

How could Diana just sleep through it? How could she just lie on her side, arms around her growing belly, and continue to drift peacefully through unconsciousness when two feet from her Bruce was gasping, snarling, and curling ever smaller on the mattress?

 

And God… how long were dreams meant to last? How long had it been going now? Seconds? Hours?

 

Not for the first time he wrestled down the urge to float over and wake the man. He knew from experience that was the wrong move.

 

Bruce had a nightmare usually roughly once a month. This was his first since Diana had become pregnant. Clark had been blissfully drinking in the empty, happy, nights listening to the heartbeats of his makeshift family. Foolishly he’d begun to think maybe Bruce had gotten over them. He was wrong.

 

“I…” Bruce gasped into the pillow. “I… need…”

 

It was the bad kind too.

 

No. They were all bad. But this… this was the worst kind.

 

Some nights Bruce would growl and lash out, some nights he would just lie impossibly still; only his heart and the strange smell of his sweat betraying his terror, and some nights… nights like this one… he would curl up into a ball and shake.

 

Sometimes he’d also cry.

 

Sometimes he’d also talk.

 

He was doing both tonight.

 

“…to be… I…”

 

Maybe if he moved fast he could wake Bruce up and disappear back to his side of the bed before he opened his eyes.

 

“It needs to…”

 

Maybe he could just lower the room temperature suddenly and shock him awake.

 

“…I… it… needs to be… enough…”

 

Maybe he could bump him as he zoomed away on a world saving mission.

 

“…please… I… have to… please… it has to be…”

 

Maybe Bruce wouldn’t mind this time.

 

“…enough!”

 

Bruce jerked upright and Clark quickly, gratefully, closed his eyes. Pretended to be asleep as Bruce looked over towards him, swore, and pushed out of bed to stumble into the connecting bathroom.

 

Moments later Clark heard the shower run.

 

A few moments after that the heavy hammer of Bruce’s heart began to dip back towards a safe, sound, level.

 

It took another moment for Clark to be able to focus on that sound, on the duel heartbeats coming from the woman beside him, and block out the angry rush of the world pressing in against the windows.

 

Let out a strained breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.

 

He hated nights like these.

 

“Clark.”

 

He stiffened.

 

“Get in here,” Bruce whispered.

 

Fuck.

 

Clark pushed out of bed and floated nervously into the bathroom. “Are you alright?”

 

“You never sleep on your back,” Bruce said. “On your front or on your side. Never on your back.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Bruce stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Dropped it over his head and quickly dried his hair before running it once across his face and letting it drop to hang off his shoulders.

 

“I’m sorry if I woke you.”

 

Clark considered lying. Knew Bruce would call him out on it if he did. “You always do.”

 

“I know.”

 

Bruce moved to stand in the doorway and look back at the still sleeping woman lying on her side in the bed. The naked bulge of her belly protruded from the careful drape of her hands. Some of the tension around his eyes evaporated at the sight.

 

“Clark…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“What does she look like?”

 

Clark considered him for a second before coming in behind him and gently wrapping his arms around his middle. Rested his chin on Bruce’s shoulder.

 

He could have teased him and described Diana but Clark knew, now was not the time. Bruce rarely asked for anything let alone in that soft, almost sad, voice. When he did Clark wouldn't, couldn't, deny him. Not him. Not this man.

 

“Small and very white,” he began softly. Continued when Bruce didn’t object. “She’s sleeping. She usually is at night. When she sleeps she’s on her left side, hands on her belly, and legs curled to meet them.”

 

Bruce didn’t say anything.

 

“Her hands are still so small, so pale, that I don’t need any special sight to see the bones in her fingers. The bones don’t have the same knuckles as I see when I look through your hands. They’re soft, smooth, and yet she can still move them as if they had all the joints of adulthood.”

 

Clark paused to watch the tiny, living, baby resting inside the woman on the bed.

 

“She sucks her thumb sometimes,” he continued softly. “At other times she swims and touches everything she can. But only if it’s quiet. If there is noise she stops and listens.”

 

Bruce was relaxing slowly into his arms. Eyes still pinned on Diana’s belly as if he could see the small being resting inside himself.

 

“She’s big for her age and her hair is going to be dark.”

 

“Going to be?”

 

“I can see the chemical make up of her cells,” he muttered. “Even the ones just starting to form.”

 

“You really needed that to tell you?”

 

Clark frowned.

 

“We all have dark hair, Clark.”

 

“Yes… well… the follicles are going to be slightly flat so it’ll also be…”

 

“Slightly curly.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Like this?” Bruce reached up and twisted his finger through a stray lock of Clark’s hair. Let it drop in Superman’s iconic split curl.

 

“Yes,” he said easily. “But don’t say that too loudly. She gets this real _glare_ when you distract her from something.”

 

Bruce turned his head.

 

“Yes,” Clark smiled. Moved to kiss the lines of his brow. “Just like that.”

 

“You’re impossible.”

 

“You’re feeling better,” Clark replied happily.

 

Bruce sighed and Clark felt it as he leant the rest of his weight against him. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Hey, no, it’s okay. You’re not the only one having bad dreams tonight. Trust me.”

 

He nodded. “Thanks for not waking me.”

 

Clark nodded. He didn’t ask. Knew he wouldn’t get an answer even if he did. But some part of him hurt knowing of the depth to Bruce that didn’t belong to him. Some part of him flinched away from the fact that some part deep inside him would always be a mystery to him. Would always belong just to Bruce and the Bat.

 

“I couldn’t do this without you,” Bruce said softly.

 

Clark blinked. “What?”

 

“This…” he gestured towards Diana and their daughter. “I couldn’t do it.”

 

“Hey, don’t say that.”

 

“I was never planning on being a father. A father has to be there. Always. A father has to put their child first.” He closed his eyes. “I won’t always be there, Clark.”

 

Physically, mentally, both… Clark understood.

 

“But when I’m not you will be. Because you’re… you. You’re not going to let me drop the ball on this one.” He was leaning all his weight against him now. Trusting Clark to hold him up. “I couldn’t do this without you.”

 

Clark kissed him; slow and reassuring. He felt the stiff line of Bruce’s lips give too easily under his as the hard, assertive, presence of the man in his arms surrendered, simply, easily, to the contact. Clark sunk into their embrace as the usually dominating attack of lip and tongue give way to an easy, tender, almost shy, connection. To a beautiful, breathing, kiss.

 

“It’s going to get harder now,” Bruce muttered against his mouth. “We’ve been living in a fairytale. Not changing our lives. Our routine.”

 

Clark broke apart their lips and nuzzled into his neck.

 

“We need too. We need to seriously… seriously figure this out.” A soft, pained, sigh. “It’s going to get harder from now on.”

 

“I know. But that's why I need you." Clark sucked in a deep breath. Inhaling the scent of his wet, naked, skin. "You've always been the one I turned to when I didn't know what to do. You're always the one I go to for help when I'm stuck." A small smile. "You won't let me drop the ball on this one. Not you."

 

It wasn't much.

 

It was hardly anything.

 

A small collection of shared words spoken on the edge of a bathroom in the middle of the night.

 

But, right then, it was enough.


	19. Chapter 19

“I’m still part of the League, Clark,” Diana snapped. “I may not be present in the Watchtower but I still have a right to know what is going on.”

 

“It was an emergency,” he stated, unfazed. “We didn’t have time to contact those who couldn’t immediately respond.”

 

Eyes narrowed. “You contacted Bruce.”

 

A stiff silence.

 

She pressed the heel of her palm to her brow and sighed. “Look Clark… I know what you’re trying to do. I understand. But I’m not… I’m not some pretty little pot plant to be kept locked away in the garden. Nor will it hurt our daughter for me to know what is going on.”

 

“Stress during pregnancy has…”

 

“And you don’t think it’s stressful when I turn on the TV, see you getting attacked by a giant robot, and only then realise you’re not downstairs?”

 

Clark had that look… the look of a school boy being told it was wrong of him to hit the class bully… even though he knew it wasn’t.

 

“Bruce doesn’t have to make an announcement whenever he disappears into the night,” Clark said. “And he’s not indestructible.”

 

“Bruce goes most nights!” Diana cried out. “I know roughly when he goes and I know roughly what time he’ll get back.” She glared at him. “And you’re not indestructible,” she added.

 

Stubbornly. “I’m a lot closer than Bruce.”

 

“Clark…” she raked a hand through her hair. “Just take a fucking second, will you? When the Justice League calls just take a fucking second to fly upstairs and tell me you’ll be gone for a bit, okay?”

 

“I was only gone for…”

 

“That’s not the point! Do you think this is easy for me, Clark? Do you think I like sitting at home not knowing where you are, or what you’re fighting, when I used to be one of the only ones that could stand beside you? Do you think it’s easy not being able to go outside unless someone realises I’m Wonder Woman and I’m pregnant? Do you think it’s easy being trapped in here when I’ve trained my whole life to be a warrior?!”

 

He didn’t say anything.

 

“I’m not asking for much, Clark,” she hissed. “Hera knows, I’m just asking for a little bit of understanding.”

 

He didn’t respond.

 

Diana gritted her teeth against the hot lump of anger rising up her gullet and turned away. Left.

 

Gods, but she hated this. Hated being trapped outside of society, hated being pushed to the fringe of the League, and hated that look that Clark wore that told her he thought all these emotions, these outbursts, were just a product of her pregnancy. Of hormones.

 

She hugged her middle and tried to pretend she didn’t miss the way things used to be. Tried to pretend she didn’t miss the years of friendship that gave birth to a sexual relationship. Tried to pretend she didn’t miss the League and the comfortable companionship she shared with her fellow warriors. Tried to pretend she didn’t miss it. All of it.

 

“I have some footage of him being thrown through walls.”

 

She looked up. Smiled.

 

Bruce stood in the doorway with a simple, naked, look of understanding.

 

“They’ve come in handy over the past months, especially when you were gone,” he continued. “It saved me from putting kryptonite in the morning coffee.”

 

From the other room. “I heard that!”

 

Diana felt her lips curl in a small, tight, smile. Spoken together. “You hear everything.”

 


	20. Chapter 20

Bruce had said things would get harder now.

 

Clark hadn’t believed him. Hadn’t wanted to believe him. But, as always, he was right.

 

They’d been living in a blitz of sex, love, and strange silly moments like young lovers caught out on a never ending first date. But, as their daughter shaped into a baby, reality hit like a kryptonite bullet.

 

How were they going to do this? How was their relationship going to survive this? How…?

 

Because this… this changed everything. Their lives were never going to go back to the way they were before. Their relationship was never again going to be the simple, easy, coupling of companions or even the intoxicating love of the last few months. They were never just going to be the trinity; Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman; ever again.

 

Some day soon, they would be parents.

 

The thought still stirred the same feelings of fevered excitement in him. The idea of finally getting to hold the girl he’d been getting to know over the past few months still brought with it a surge of anticipation.

 

But now there was fear as well.

 

Because now… now there was a baby room in Wayne Manor and a second in Smallville. Now there were tiny clothes in the draws and even smaller shoes by the cot. Now there wasn’t just a daughter tucked safely inside the woman he loved… but the promise of a baby, a tiny person, soon to arrive.

 

He was frightened.

 

Frightened he wouldn’t be able to be the support he’s promised Diana when he’d first discovered the small, beating, life within her. Frightened he wouldn’t be able to backup Bruce the way he’d promised holding him in the middle of the night. Frightened he wouldn’t be… be a good dad.

 

He’d never done this before.

 

He didn’t know how to do this.

 

Didn’t know…

 

Fuck.

 

“You’re flying.”

 

He looked down at Diana watching him from the marble floor below.

 

“Just a little.”

 

“Nervous?”

 

A pause. “Yeah.”

 

Her lips curled in a small, kind, smile and she lifted off the ground to meet him in the air. Wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled herself as close as her pregnancy allowed to plant a warm kiss onto his lips.

 

“I’m sure you’ll be a good wife,” she said with a teasing nip on his bottom lip.

 

His heart sank. She thought he was worried about the wedding tomorrow. She didn’t understand what…

 

“And,” she added at a whisper. “You’ll be a great dad.”

 

He blinked. Oh.

 

“I’m…” he met her honest, open, gaze. “Do you think so?”

 

“You’re going to be the favourite,” she promised.

 

He began to protest.

 

“Flights around the world after school, super speed pick up spins, and instant icy poles on demand,” she countered quickly. “Don’t worry Clark. She’s going to _love_ you.”

 

“But… what if…”

 

“Hey,” a hand on his face, “we’ll get through this, okay? One step at a time.”

 

“Right.” A deep breath. “What’s the next step?”

 

“Well,” she chewed her bottom lip. “You could save Bruce.”

 

“What…?”

 

He listened.

 

Ah.

 

“I think he’s fine.”

 

“You think so?”

 

He looked through the walls and into the temple garden beyond. Themiscyra, the home of the Amazons, was coming to the end of the harvest season and the gardens had been decorated with golden straw, clay pots, and animal skins to celebrate the successful yield of the land. Bruce sat beside the thorniest bush in the whole complex and glared death at the ever growing horde of women massing around him.

 

Clark didn’t blame them.

 

The warm climate had forced the man to shed his usually armour like clothing in favour of some loose, open, shirts, which moved against his body with even the slightest breath of wind revealing the solid shape of interlocked muscle underneath. The lighter clothing also, apparently, hadn’t helped as he was still sweating just enough to add a shine to the exposed swell of muscle on his chest. On top of that he hadn’t shaved. Clark loved it when he didn’t shave. The lower half of his face was shaded just enough to bring out the height of his cheekbones and the square line of his jawbone without smothering the line of his cheeks or the shape of his lips.

 

And most of them had never even seen a man before.

 

As he watched one ‘accidentally’ bumped her hand against his chest and giggled when she found a lack of breast, a second plucked cheekily at the edge of his shirt and offered to make him some finer clothes for the ceremony tomorrow if he’d come for a fitting, and a third subtly sketched him onto a roll of parchment while asking if he had any sisters who were also men.

 

The man’s eyes were growing dangerously dark.

 

“Yes,” Clark concluded. “He’s fine.”

 

Diana chuckled and drew his lips in for a longer, lasting, kiss. He melted into the touch, ran his hands down the sides of her body, and felt the quiver of muscle under his fingertips. God, but she was beautiful. Lips full, hair thick, skin toned and gold even despite this late stage in her pregnancy.

 

He gently began exploring her body. The heavy round weight of her breasts, the full shape of her body, and the curve of her spine. She gasped, sighed, and chuckled throatily into his ear as he slid a thumb across the swollen head of a nipple.

 

“Stealing a feel in a temple, Clark?”

 

“It’s only sacrilege if you’re touching the ground,” he muttered back.

 

The door at the end of the chamber opened and Clark quickly wrapped an arm around Diana’s middle and pulled her up and behind a pillar out of sight. Pressed her against the stonework and joined their lips as a trail of unsuspecting priestesses moved below.

 

“Some, boy scout you are,” the woman whispered. “Leave your ally out in enemy territory and take a woman in public.”

 

“It’s just a kiss,” he spoke against her lips as he slid a hand up the inside of her thigh, “and I’ll make it up to him later. I promise.”

 

“Only if I get to watch,” she crooned back.

 

A half smile. “As you command, Princess.”


	21. Chapter 21

The wedding was held in the evening the following day. Golden sunlight spilt from the horizon in seemingly solid planks of glittering yellow against a violent tangle of red and purple cloud. The colours splashed onto the moving body of the sea below; the mirror image broken only by the soft white tips of the rolling waves.

 

Clark, Diana, and Bruce stood on a white marble podium built on the top of the island’s tallest cliff shore. The Amazon honour guard stood in formation around them behind matching spears and shields, their armour coloured the same bold red and blue of their Princess. Beyond the population of the island gathered in the fields with enough flaming touches to fill the sea air with the hearty tang of wood smoke.

 

The ceremony itself was brief. Diana declared her choice of consorts before the Queen and High Priestess, both men proclaimed themselves willing, and the honour guard banged their spears into their shields before declaring their sworn duty and honour to protect these new additions to the royal house.

 

It was done. They were Amazons. They were married.

 

The celebrations, however, were not so short lived.

 

The feast was held outside, as was tradition at royal weddings, and every family brought what they could to the table. Ten wild deer were carried in on spits, stuffed with the harvest’s finest produce, and roasted over a roaring fire. A host of spiced and mulled wines were served beside the safer juices and flavoured waters for those unwilling or unable to celebrate in drink. Lamb shanks and roasted ribs were passed around and fish of all kinds fell upon the table; some wrapped in sweet smelling leaves and seared a rich dark red, others fried and laid out with oysters, and even more cooked in what appeared to be stir fries, boiled into soup not dissimilar to chowder, or smoked till the flesh fell off the bone at the slightest touch. Fresh bread filled with berries, crushed nuts, and herbs separated the heavier courses.

 

As they ate performers reenacted famous moments of Amazon history, spiralled through graceful acrobatic performances, or sung songs with the aid of flutes made from bones, and drums from animal hide.

 

Bruce watched these with interest. It seemed so strange in this modern age that there were people - strong independent people - who still fashioned instruments by hand from the natural materials in the world around them. It shouldn’t have surprised him. He had seen the smiths crafting the swords carried by the warriors and the weavers assembling the cloth. Everything here was done as it always had been; by people, masters of their trade and craft. Crafts perfected over magically lengthened lifetimes.

 

His eyes slid to the honour guard still standing at the edge of the celebrations. Like the smiths and the crafters these women had spent lifetimes training to master their chosen art; that of war. It was a dated form of battle they learnt, he had seen from Diana, but there were also moves and rhythms that were completely alien to any fighting style he knew.

 

He was Amazon now and all Amazons had the right to learn their people’s ways of war. He wondered how long it would take to master and interweave their forms of combat with his own.

 

A flash of light drew his attention back to the performance. A woman in white silk robes had taken the stage. In her hand she held a ball of naked green flame. On the other side of Diana Bruce saw Clark stiffen.

 

Magic.

 

A smile twisted his lips. Perhaps not everything was crafted by what was found in nature.

 

He watched as the woman put on an impressive show; she tossed rainbow flames across her skin and sent sparks like consolations into the air all the while working her body through a sensual dance with the fluid feral grace of a wild cat. When she finished the Queen drew herself up, stepped forward, and pulled the sorceress into a warm open kiss that spoke of decades of companionship before turning once again to address the gathered women.

 

Bruce didn’t listen. There had been at least a hundred toasts in their honour and a disproportionate number of those had come from Diana’s mother, cheeks peaked red with drink. It wasn’t until he heard the collective intake of air from the gathered people and saw the corner of Diana’s brilliant smile did he look up.

 

And lose his breath.

 

“… hereby gift them to my new _daughters_ ,” a rumble of laughter, “as a token of their newfound place among the Amazon people. May they serve them well both in wartime and peace.”

 

Two horses stood untethered in the firelight. One white. One black. Both equipt with a pair of massive feathered wings. The Pegasus of Greek ledged.

 

Massive bodies quivered with unspent energy, glistening coats spoke of vibrant health, and eyes roamed around the crowd with excited expectation. White nickered and tossed her head. Black pawed the ground and snorted.

 

“They are waiting for you two,” one of the warriors said after a pause.

 

“I… um… mother?” Diana began. “This is very kind but I’m afraid most in the realms of man don’t know how to ride.”

 

A murmur of surprise.

 

The Queen blinked. “What? But how to they…?” Her blush swelled. “Is it because…?” a gesture towards her groin.

 

“Ah, no,” Diana said as a few hundred honestly curious eyes turned towards her. “That… all of that is fine. It’s just in the realm of man they don’t…”

 

“I can ride,” Bruce interrupted. He was old money. It was a requirement.

 

“It’s… a bit different,” she tried.

 

He pushed back the plate before him, stood, and walked towards the two animals. They turned their heads to regard him with obvious excitement, shifted, and bumped against each other as if playfully fighting over the right to be ridden.

 

“Catch him when he falls, Clark,” Diana said as Bruce climbed over a feathered black wing, sat between the shoulder blades, and paused to feel the eager breathing of the animal beneath him. The thunder of a powerful, wild, heart.

 

Keeping his knees hooked before the wings he nudged his heels into the ribs.

 

And then he was in the night sky. The alcohol in his system added a bewitching trail of motion blur to the stars as they thundered up towards them.

 

It was nothing like flying with Clark. Clark was careful, gentle, and encompassing.

 

It was nothing like flying the Batwing. The Batwing was all power; engines growling, roaring, and purring under his fingertips.

 

It was nothing like gliding. Gliding was following the waves and movement of the air in an almost mathematical fashion as he travelled the distance.

 

It was nothing like anything he’d ever done before.

 

Except maybe sex.

 

A blinding, brilliant, lost of control.

 

A simple, passionate, union.

 

An animalistic surge of pleasure.

 

He could fly.

 

A savage laugh broke from his lips as the world spiralled away beneath him. He couldn’t control the animal beneath him. It didn’t matter. He let her take him on a pitching, plunging, dance through the night sky.

 

When he fell Clark caught him, crushed his lips against his in a fevered kiss, and placed him back on his mount so fast only the new wetness of Bruce’s lips promised it wasn’t his imagination. The same thing happened when he fell a second time. And third. And fourth. The fifth may have been deliberate.

 

He saw the white horse twirling impossibly bright in the moonlight, he saw lights and wondered if they were stars above or fires below, and he saw a swirling mass and wondered if it was sea or cloud. He felt his own heart fall into rhythm with the thunderous beat beneath him. He felt his own body move with the roll of muscle and beat of wing. He saw and felt so much... so much so fast he couldn't be sure he saw or felt it at all.

 

It could have been moments or hours later when he felt Diana land onto the horse behind him and place her hands over his. He leant back into her, kissed her over his shoulder, and for the first time Clark’s suggestion of sex in the sky didn’t sound like such a stupid idea after all. She showed him how to guide the animal, how to control it, and brought it back down to a stable full of other winged horses where the white horse was already being brushed down.

 

The animal shrugged him off and plodded wearily into an empty stall where a stable girl jumped to tend to her.

 

He pushed Diana into the wall, held her arms above her head, and kissed her. Kissed her without a thought for where they were or who would see. Kissed her like they were apocalypian lovers sharing in each other a fast final time. Kissed her with every bit of passion stolen from his time in the stars. Kissed her and wondered how she and Clark didn’t go mad being able to sour so every night.

 

“Bruce…” Diana gasped between his lips and he paused to drink up the sight of her; cheeks flushed, hair wild, and lips round and wet. “Gods…" she whispered, looking at him with the same hungry fascination he knew was reflected in his own eyes. "Clark!” A blur of motion through the open door. “Get us to the bedroom." A suddering breath. "Now.”


	22. Chapter 22

Diana had never seen Bruce like this before.

 

She had never seen him writhe, snarl, and reach for her with all the wild need of an animal in heat. She had never seen that savage light burn in the back of normally steel eyes as he pinned her to the mattress and crushed his mouth against hers. She had never seen him so… so _hungry_ in all the months they had lived together as he tore at her dress with tooth and nail.

 

Some small part of her hoped it was just the thrill of his flight still wearing off and not anything slipped into the wine. Most of her didn’t care, didn’t question… just marvelled and relished the prize offered to her.

 

He tossed away her skirt, fell between her legs and… gods… even like this he hadn’t lost the precise powerful _aggressive_ form of love making that was so… so Bruce. Unafraid of hurting her he attacked with tooth, tongue, and a technique developed and practised to perfection. Deliberately designed to bring her to blunt and brutal orgasm as quickly as possible.

 

“Ah… gods… Bruce…”

 

She couldn’t kick, thrash, or buck without risking hurting him. She couldn’t risk touching him with the violent involuntary clench of muscle forcing her hands into white knuckled fists. She couldn’t… couldn’t last long under Bruce. Not like this. Not when he tongued her, touched her, with all the drive, all the anger, all the need of Batman.

 

Batman. This was Batman.

 

Batman.

 

The warrior in a dark cowl and cape who had stopped her with a lens layered look upon her first visit into the realm of man. Princess. He’d called her Princess before she even knew who or what he was and the title she had grown up hearing all her life sounded so… _alien_ spoken the deep baritone of man, of this man, of Batman… it had stirred something inside her. Something deep. Primeval.

 

Something akin to desire. But darker, deeper, and more dangerous.

 

In time she had learnt of the man behind the mask. The beautiful deadly shape shifter that could stand among the Justice League as a leader, hunt the guilty on the streets of his city as a black clad spirit of vengeance, and seduce hordes of women as multi-billionaire playboy all seemingly in a single breath; effortlessly switching masks with only a hint of the true man exposed in the transition.

 

How could she not fall in love with that man? With him? This beautiful powerful creature that held her down despite her superior strength. This dark dangerous being who sent blinding waves of heat through her with every flick of his tongue. This perfect… Bruce… who was frightening, controlling, complex, brilliant, domineering, talented, deadly, intoxicating, extraordinary… hers.

 

Hers now by the oath of her people before the gods.

 

She was close, so close, she could feel herself slipping, falling, and moving steadily passed the point… pushed. Pushed by one final, assertive, invasion of tongue.

 

“B-Bruce!”

 

Pleasure crashed into her like an attacking army; took her body in a harried, hard, flood of fulfilled desire that burnt like fire through her veins and left all her muscles twitching and shivering in shameless, uncontrolled, spasms. She let herself ride the tide of that release; whimpering, moaning, and crying out as the feeling took her with abusive force and left a searing heat on her skin in its wake.

 

“I love you,” she heard herself whisper. “I love you so much. I love you. I love you.” Stuck on repeat. A breathless outpour that wouldn’t have changed if she’d been bound from head to toe in her lasso.

 

He sat up, stroked her thighs with the palms of his hand, and showered kisses on the round shape of her belly between them. His lips were hot, wet, and sent shivers of pleasure through her as they scraped her skin. Rough and heavy with need. She parted her legs invitingly.

 

Missionary was getting harder as her body continued to swell so she wasn’t surprised when Bruce pulled her upright and into his lap instead. With her back to his chest he entered her, bit down on her shoulder, and began to guide the movement of her hips with his hands.

 

The newly unravelled knot tightened once more in her stomach as she felt herself stretch around his length.

 

She surrendered to the feeling.

 

To the fullness.

 

To the ache.

 

To the sting of pleasure that flared hot at every targeted roll of his hips.

 

Under the shade of her sunken eyelashes Diana saw Clark floating over the bed, naked, and lazily fisting his penis as he watched. His eyes were a bright impossible blue, cheeks red, and mouth slightly open. Waiting. Knowing that this was all Bruce’s time and trusting his would come soon.

 

Bruce squeezed her hips and she began to ride him faster. Felt him buck up to meet her every time she descended.

 

They came together; bodies crushed against each other, sweat mingled, and voices broken and breathless.

 

Diana pulled herself off him and fell onto the mattress.

 

Flinched.

 

Apparently vigorous sex wasn’t the best remedy for a sore back.

 

Bruce rolled away from her with a soft, sated, growl. The strange light in his eyes smouldered; lessened but not extinguished.

 

Clark dropped onto the silk mattress beside her and rained random kisses on her face until he found her lips. The kiss was hot, heavy, and tasted of sweat and sex. He moaned into her mouth.

 

Gods, but he was perfect.

 

Strong and safe, kind and caring, warm and ready.

 

So… so different from Bruce.

 

Bruce was emotion, anger, and movement. He was wild, dark, and untameable. But Clark… he was good. Simply, honestly, wholly, good. A sun god from space with more natural humanity than any human she had ever met.

 

“Clark,” she stopped him with a hand to his chest. “You promised you would make it up to him.”

 

He blinked at her. “What….?” Understanding hit. “Diana…”

 

“My back is killing me, Clark,” she whispered. “And you _did_ promise.”

 

Pleading puppy dog eyes.

 

Her lip curled. She sat up, tangled a hand in his hair, and pulled him close. Whispered. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Superman.”

 

He tried to pull back and stopped in surprise as he realised how strongly she held him.

 

Bruce watched with dark eyed interest.

 

“By law of this land… I’m not your only wife.”

 

She pushed him head first into Bruce’s lap.

 

A moment of hesitation. Eyes flickered up to look at the man above him Saw the raw want plastered across his features. Got the idea. Took him into his mouth.

 

Bruce’s response was immediate.

 

Muscles twitched and tightened, lips pinched and parted, and a hand reached around to replace Diana’s in the man’s hair to urge him on. The light in his eyes flared back to life. From ember to inferno.

 

Diana slumped back against silk pillows to watch.

 

They were beautiful.

 

The lantern light painted the pair in flickering shadows, touched the buckle of muscle in gold, and lingered in the reflection of their eyes. Clark moved in a slow, sure, rhythm up and down the other man’s shaft. A pace mathematically chosen to extract the best sounds from the partner he worked.

 

A growl that started low in his chest, travelled up through his body, and fell from his lips in something closer to a purr. A purr that built into a groan. A groan that became laboured until it was nothing more than a series of broken breaths.

 

Gasps. Grunts.

 

Sweat. Sex.

 

Clark. Bruce.

 

Beautiful.

 

Beautiful and so fucking sexy.

 

Hers.

 

Gods, it was hard to pretend that thought didn’t make her wet. To pretend this marriage had, to her, been the same legal process as it had to them. Because, even if it was just to allow them free access to the island and their daughter during her time there it… it was the Amazon wedding she had grown up dreaming about. And this was – to use the words of man’s realm – the honeymoon.

 

Bruce’s muscles shuddered, tensed, and relaxed as he came. He blinked, fighting back the flood of chemicals that threatened to put him to sleep, and moved to return the favour.

 

Clark groaned; the sound open and unhindered, as Bruce swallowed him. He began to pant as the other man moved; harder, faster, and with cold grey blue eyes open and fixed onto Clark’s face. Reading and using the information to refine the action he was performing. Tailor it to the other man at that very moment in time. Ever the World’s Greatest Detective.

 

When they finished she kissed them both, tasted each other on their lips, and offered them the spiced orange water left at the bedside table. They both returned the touch, drank the offered refreshment, and fell sleepily onto the tangled mess of sheets and strewn pillows.

 

Diana smiled.

 

She had never seen Bruce like this before. Never seen him so open, so wild, and now… so willing to fall asleep within Clark’s loose embrace. She snuggled up behind him and pressed her lips to the back of his neck.

 

She could get used to this new side of Bruce.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nervous posting this one...

Clark woke.

 

Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

 

The air was thick and smelt sickeningly sweet and sharp; the taste of the heavy human particles floating through space heart stopping familiar.

 

“Diana.”

 

He rolled and shook her shoulder.

 

Brow puckered and eyes blinked open.

 

“Clark? What’s wrong?”

 

She saw it and her face drained of colour. The normally white bedding around them was stained a bright angry red. The smell of it was unmistakable and the sight even more so. Blood.

 

With a trembling hand Diana reached down and slid her fingers between her legs.

 

Clark couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

 

Could only stare in horror at the splash of colour and the tentative exploration of the woman he loved hand as she gingerly felt her opening. This wasn’t birth; it was too early and too bloody. This was something else… something so unspeakably bad that…

 

She pulled her hand back. It was clean.

 

It wasn’t her.

 

Relief crashed into the pair with the weight of the world. Their daughter lay untouched within her mother, heart hammering her usual fast paced flutter, and eyes blinking sleepily into awareness as her mother shifted. Safe. Thank God she was safe.

 

“Oh gods,” Diana whispered and frantically threw aside the sheet.

 

A moment later the same realisation hit Clark.

 

It wasn’t Diana.

 

It was Bruce.

 

The man lay face down, skin pale, and breathing slow as he sunk into an unconsciousness that had nothing to do with sleep.

 

Clark moved at super speed; he rolled the man unceremoniously onto his back, exposed the wound in the middle of a bloody chest, and cauterized it in a blaze of red. Bruce bucked forward and cried out in pain. Steel blue eyes snapped open, teeth bared, and muscles tensed as he bucked forward. Alive.

 

Clark pulled the man into his arms and held him. Ignored the way he writhed and struck out.

 

He was alive, he was safe, and Diana…

 

“Diana!”

 

Bruce’s voice was horse, strangled, and desperate. Clark looked over his shoulder to see the woman standing in the middle of the room. In one hand she held a sword and in the other the shirt collar of a strange man. The blade was thrust into the underside of his jaw so it protruded through the back of his skull.

 

“To Hades with you.”

 

She removed the weapon with a practised twirl and the body slumped to the floor. From his hand fell a short blood mattered blade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... as it's clearly a bit of a swing in tone. I hope you guys don't mind a little bit of darkness and drama. Just a bit.


	24. Chapter 24

It was the first time Diana and Bruce had fought.

 

There had been arguments in the past. Small. Meaningless. But in their threesome there seemed to have always been a sense of calm, of peace, between the pair. It was something Clark had envied as their closer living arrangements had struck small, sharp, stinging moments between him and both of them in tern.

 

This was worse than that.

 

Far worse.

 

He sat on the floor in the manor and trailed the microscopic patterns in the woollen strands of carpet with his eyes. Wool up close had a grain almost like wood. Seams through the particles that was beautiful despite being so unknown. Or perhaps because of it. Like the way atoms seemed to flicker and dance and the rolling majesty of the drifting asteroid belt. He thought of every beautiful thing that only he had ever seen and then tried to think of a way to show it to everyone else.

 

It didn’t – couldn’t – distract him from the raised voices echoing from the other room.

 

He supposed beauty had to be found not shown anyway.

 

With a sigh he rubbed his forehead and tried again to will himself to fly away. If he were floating around the sun he wouldn’t be able to pick apart the two people he loved from the rest of the world buzzing in the background. But he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave when the smell, the taste, and the memory of Bruce’s blood was still so fresh in his mind. He couldn’t leave so soon after such a brutal reminder at how… fragile Bruce was.

 

So he stayed.

 

He stayed and wished this argument was small and meaningless.

 

Stayed and wished it to be over.


	25. Chapter 25

“He tried to kill you Bruce!” She cried. “If Clark hadn’t woken he wo--”

 

“I don’t give a damn!” He retorted. “You killed him. You’re meant to be better than--”

 

“Don’t you fucking dare! He was a fucking crim--”

 

“He was a man! What if someone sent him? What if--”

 

She threw her hands into the air. “He was breaking in to steal the Wayne fortune, Bruce. You know that! Don’t pretend you don’t! If you looked you could have his miserable life story within the hour.”

 

“He had a drugged blade, entered without waking any of us--”

 

“He was scum,” she spat. “He’s a scum that attacked my family in the hopes of a cold wrist watch.”

 

 “He could have been an assassin,” he snarled. “You killed him and now there is no way of--”

 

“He was a fucking thief with a cheap poison got at the docks. You know this city is full of that kind of shit--”

 

“I know nothing thanks to you!”

 

Rage flared hot and heavy in her gut. “He tried to kill you!” Diana screamed. “He probably tried to kill us too! Just because of our powers--”

 

“I don’t care about your goddamned powers!”

 

“No! All you care about is pretending this fucking thief was more. Joe Chill was just a…”

 

Too far.

 

That was too far.

 

Far too far.

 

She watched as Bruce’s eyes grew cold and dark, his lips pinched into a tight line, and his face became stiff and fallow.

 

“Bruce,” she sighed. “I’m sorry I…”

 

“Get out,” he growled.

 

“I…”

 

“Now.”


	26. Chapter 26

He was right.

 

Of course he was right.

 

He was Batman.

 

Batman was always right.

 

And she… she was always wrong.

 

It had been her wrong that had lead to this unplanned pregnancy, it had been her wrong that had driven a blade between her and Bruce, and it had been her wrong that lead that man into the bedroom.

 

She knew it.

 

She had denied it.

 

But she knew it.

 

He had the markings of the witch Circe burnt into the flesh of his arms and the blade he held was dipped with Medusa’s Bane; a plant and a poison only found on Themiscyra.

 

He hadn’t been a thief after the Wayne fortune, or even a punk slipped in off the streets. He had been a magic user possessed or controlled by the most powerful sorceress of her realm. It had been an attack on her. An attempt to kill those closest to her.

 

Diana sat on the top of a building overlooking his city, her dress wrapped tightly around her, and stared forlorn into the musky orange sunset. The wind rose off the ocean bringing with it the harsh, ugly, scent of the ships at the docks and the mangled fish dead or dying in the nets.

 

It was her fault. All of it. All, no doubt, because of this wedding. It was considered unholy for a woman, let alone a princess, to be bound in marriage to a man, let alone two. Women married women and men came to give the seed needed to bare the daughters. It was the way it had always been. It was tradition. And she had defied it.

 

Most Amazons had brushed aside or laughed at the odd behaviour of their princess. She should have known not all would. She should have known there would be some hetrophobia. She should have expected they would enlist help from someone like Circe; now banished from the island and her sworn enemy the witch was still considered an Amazon.

 

She should have known… if she had at least suspected… if she had she wouldn’t be here now, Bruce wouldn’t be hurt, and they… all of them… would be…

 

She put both her lovers in danger. If the man had used his magic he could have wounded Clark as well. Perhaps that was what he was about to do when the man woke. Perhaps…

 

She had killed him. That was the one thing she couldn’t feel guilty about. She couldn’t. He had tried to kill Bruce… would have tried to kill Clark. He had…

 

She loved them both so much. Clark. Bruce. The moment she had seen him - the would-be assassin - standing at the foot of the bed with the bloody blade and face full of dark deranged intent nothing else had mattered. He had hurt her family. He had tried to destroy her family. He had…

 

Gods… she couldn’t regret it. Even now she couldn’t… not when he had come so horribly close to taking one of the most important things in her life away from her.

 

She knew she was wrong to feel so.

 

She knew she was wrong.

 

She knew…

 

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because every time she closed her eyes she saw the blood, she saw Bruce, and she saw him…

 

Every time she closed her eyes all she felt was hate, and rage, and… fear. She had been so afraid. When Clark had closed the wound and Bruce had cried out… it had been the most beautiful sound in the world. The sound of life. He was alive. He was okay.

 

It was all her fault. All of it.

 

She was wrong.

 

And she didn’t know what she could do to make it right.

 

“I love you, Bruce,” she whispered into the cold, heavy, air. “I love you so much… I just… can’t. I know I love you more than I should. I know…” eyes closed. “I’m sorry but I can’t regret this. I can’t. I wish… I…”

 

Head in hands.

 

“Gods... help me.”


	27. Chapter 27

He was right.

 

He hated that he was right.

 

He hated that he was always right.

 

Bruce sat in the cave and glared at the monitor before him. He glared at the strings of molecules that made up the poison, glared at the readings of magical energies still rising from the man’s tattoos, and glared at the easy and obvious conclusion that grinned down mockingly from the screen.

 

Diana.

 

It had been their wedding that had triggered this.

 

It had been the Amazons that had organized this.

 

It had been her that had pulled out her sword, stepped forward, and ended this.

 

“I’ve spoken with the Amazon honour guard,” Clark said as he entered the room. “They’ll find whoever’s responsible for this.”

 

“I know.”

 

It didn’t matter. The fact that a small group of crazy women on a far away island had tried to end his life didn’t matter. They had failed and in doing so revealed themselves. They would not be able to hurt him or his family again.

 

What mattered was Diana.

 

She had killed. She had killed a man.

 

It wasn’t the first time.

 

He doubted it would be the last.

 

“How’s your wound? Do you need anything?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“It’s got to hurt, Bruce. Are you sure you don’t want some painkillers?”

 

Lower. Harder. Harsher. “I’m fine.”

 

Clark hugged his sides, looked aside, and nodded. “Okay.”

 

Wrong. Everything was wrong. Because he couldn’t love someone who killed. He couldn’t love that. He couldn’t love… he couldn’t love the gun. And now every time he closed his eyes he saw Diana slide her sword easily and effortlessly through the other man’s head. He saw the justified anger in her eyes and the smooth, careless, grace as she removed the blade in an idle flourish. He saw her kill without regret, without remorse, and without... without even looking over her shoulder.

 

Without looking back to see the look in his eyes as he cried out to her; as he tried to stop her... tried to save her.

 

Wrong.

 

So wrong it made his heart ache. So wrong it made his knees shake. So wrong it made the whole world bleak, black, and barren.

 

And he didn't know what he could do to make it right. 


	28. Chapter 28

He had promised.

 

He had promised Diana he would be there for her and he had promised Bruce he would help him through this.

 

He had promised.

 

He was Superman.

 

Superman didn’t break promises.

 

Even if that meant twisting one of the other rules of being Superman.

 

“They have kryptonite,” he lied.

 

Through the commlink. “Are you alright?”

 

“Yes,” Clark replied. “I put a bit of rubble between me and them but they have me trapped.” He hoped it sounded more convincing to Bruce than it did to his own ears. “Get here as soon as you can, okay?”

 

“Right. Hold on.”

 

The second the line went dead he patched a called to Diana.

 

“I’ve got a captive who won’t talk and a time bomb,” he said simply. “I need the lasso. Now.”

 

She replied without hesitation. “Okay. On my way.”

 

His trap was set.

 

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like having to lie and deceive the two people he most cared about. But it had been fifty two days since they’d last stood in a room together let alone talked. Fifty two days of drifting between homes, of trying to reconstruct the relationship that had so swiftly been torn down, and of feeling his whole being divide as if he were being ripped slowly in two. He was being pulled apart and the rip was right across his heart.

 

At first he’d tried to spend an even amount of time with each in turn, tried to talk about the absent member of their trinity with whoever he was with, and tried to act as if this were just a small misunderstanding. A storm that would blow over. When it became clear that this was something deeper things changed.

 

Diana had betrayed one of Bruce’s most fundamental values, he understood that, but he also understood what had motivated her. If Bruce’s heart hadn’t been beating he couldn’t pretend there wasn’t a chance wouldn’t have done the same; and he wasn’t raised in a culture of warriors and weapons; of pride and passion; of love and life above all else.

 

She was wrong.

 

He knew that. He believed that.

 

But… Bruce face down on blood stained sheets, skin ashen, and heart strangely soft… fading.

 

It hadn’t been right. But, by God, it hadn’t felt so wrong either. Not at the time.

 

The thought frightened him. But he couldn’t shrug it. Couldn’t keep living with Bruce and pretending he didn’t understand the rage, the fear, and the passion that had driven Diana from the bed that night. It was a lie to share a life with the man and pretend he wasn’t as guilty as Diana.

 

But, he also couldn’t understand why Diana didn’t apologize. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t fly into the manor, fall onto her knees, and beg to belong to Bruce once more. For them all to be together again. For them to at least try… if for nothing else than for their daughter.

 

Their daughter who couldn’t be far away now.

 

Soon he would be able to hold her.

 

Soon.

 

He wouldn’t deprive Bruce of that pleasure. He wouldn’t let their fledgling family die before the most important member came fully into it. He wouldn’t – couldn’t give in. He had to do something. Anything. Even if he broke the rules of being Superman. Because this wasn’t about Superman. This was about Clark. And Clark couldn’t take this anymore.

 

The door opened and pale light spilt into the room and splashed an unmistakable shadow across the far wall. Batman. Clark didn’t bother to turn. He hovered with his legs crossed under him midair feeling strangely weighed down by his civilian clothes.

 

“You lied to me.”

 

“Yeah,” Clark muttered.

 

The room was narrow and plastered with cheap white wallpaper. The blinds were drawn but the smell of Gotham Industry penetrated.

 

“Why?”

 

“I need to talk to you.”

 

“You can talk to me at home,” Bruce observed.

 

A pause.

 

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

 

The other man sighed and stepped into the room; cape whispering on the bare floorboards behind him.

 

“This is about her, isn’t it.” Not a question.

 

“Yes,” Clark answered anyway. “She’ll be born soon. I don’t want it to be into this… mess.” He looked up at met the cold white glare of Batman. “I won’t give her up, Bruce. I don’t care what happens I… I love her. She’s my daughter. Our daughter. And Diana is her mother.” He let those words sit for a moment before continuing. “And I love her too.”

 

Bruce leant against the wall and threw back the cowl. “Shit.”

 

Clark’s lips curled. “Yeah.”

 

There were new lines forming on Bruce’s brow, a hardness to his features that hadn’t been there before, and a deep boned weariness that dulled the normally sharp intelligence in his eyes.

 

“Diana…” Bruce began. “She… we…” He gritted his teeth, looked aside, and changed his tack. “If you want to go with her, I’ll understand.”

 

“I don’t want to go with her,” Clark muttered. “I don’t want to leave you.”

 

His voice rose slightly at the end of the statement leaving it unrailed and unsure.

 

“But you will,” Bruce finished for him. “For her.”

 

“For our daughter,” Clark clarified. “Yes.”

 

The silence was heavy.

 

“I under…”

 

“No, Bruce,” Clark stopped him. “You don’t understand.”

 

The man watched him, waited. He waited for Clark to speak the final, finishing, words that would end the stretched and strained love affair between them. Waited for the finishing blow with heartbreaking resignation.

 

“Bruce, don’t. I don’t want to leave you.”

 

“But you don’t want to leave Diana either,” he was reminded.

 

“It’s not like that it’s…” he tore off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. None of this was right. “You’re asking me to choose and… we’ve never asked that of each other. Not, you, me, and Diana. There was never a choice. We were all okay. We were three.” He sucked in a deep breath and returned the glasses to his nose. “I want that. I want that back so much I’ll fight for it.”

 

“But with her...”

 

“I’ve always wanted children,” Clark countered desperately. “Between you and Diana I could never choose but… Don’t ask me to give up my daughter, Bruce. Don’t ask that of me.”

 

There was a cold, reserved, look in his eyes as he spoke. Gaze targeted unseeing at the systematic lines of floorboards. “I won’t.”

 

“But you would ask me to give you up.”

 

He closed his eyes. “I can’t accept what she did, Clark. I can’t… I can’t love that.”

 

“But you do!”

 

“But I can’t!” Bruce snapped back. “How can you just ignore it, Clark? How can you just keep going on and pretend like nothing ever happened?”

 

Silence.

 

“She murdered a man, Clark.”

 

“I know.”

 

Bruce sighed and pulled the corners of his cape around himself. The reserved acceptance Clark had seen before once again invaded his eyes leaving them cool and empty. He was building walls; mathematically defining the newfound distance between them and sectioning if off as no mans land. Preparing himself for what he believed was going to happen next. Preparing himself for the goodbye.

 

“We’re meant to be the good guys,” Clark said softly. “We’re meant to always do the right thing and make the right choices. But we don’t. Every one of us is human, even those of us who aren’t, and humans make mistakes.” He drifted closer to Bruce. “I don’t know exactly what Diana was thinking when she killed that man, Bruce. I don’t know exactly what drove her to defend her actions so strongly. But can’t we talk about this? Can’t we try and figure something out?”

 

Bruce didn’t make a sound.

 

“I love you, Bruce. I love you more than I can say. And I love Diana. This…”

 

“Clark?”

 

Bruce stiffened as Diana stepped into the room, hair braided and body wrapped in a star spangled robe that stopped just shy of her knees. Golden sandals wrapped around her calves in interlocking straps mimicking the ancient Greek style. Her lasso was bound in a knot at her hip and her sword swung from her shoulders.

 

“Clark what are you…” her gaze found Bruce. Her face paled. “Oh…”

 

“Diana.”

 

She abruptly turned on her heel and vanished out the open doorway.

 

“Diana!”

 

Clark sped out to intercept her in the hallway.

 

“Wait… please just…”

 

“Clark,” her eyes were bleak, and cold. “How could you?”

 

“I just… I just need you two to talk about this, okay? Trust me.”

 

“He doesn’t want to talk to me,” she snapped. “You know that.”

 

“You’re the one walking out Diana.”

 

She looked aside.

 

“Please.”

 

“This won’t end up anywhere good,” she promised. “This isn’t just going to go away.”

 

“Please,” he said again. Took her hand. “Can’t we just try?”

 

She looked at their hands, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “What he wants is something I can’t give him, Clark. I can’t.”

 

“Why?”

 

Bruce stood in the doorway, cape around him, and glare blistering cold.

 

“I…” she looked at the other man, face ashen and eyes tortured. “I kill, Bruce. I know you don’t. I understand that.” She paused as if waiting for him to interrupt. When it became obvious he wouldn’t she sucked in a deep, steadying, breath and continued. “But I’m a warrior. I fight in wars. I first killed decades ago.” Another deep breath. “I know you don’t; I know the Justice League doesn’t, but… I do. I have to.”

 

“No,” Bruce growled. “You don’t.”

 

“I do!” She yelled back. “You’ve seen what monsters we go up against, you’ve seen what our enemies are willing to do… for the sake of the world I have to be willing to kill when necessary… because you won’t.”

 

“What gives you the right to decide you lives and dies?!” Bruce snarled, stalking closer. “Under what authority do you give and take life?!”

 

“The world isn’t black and white,” she replied. “You draw your lines in the sand and I respect those but can’t you see… can’t you see that there is grey here? Can’t you understand that I… that I can’t stand behind your lines and turn a blind eye to what’s beyond?”

 

Bruce bared his teeth as he spoke. “Of course there is grey. There is always grey. That’s exactly why we _can’t_ start judging Diana. Because no one is totally evil. No one. If we start killing; if we do that, if that’s what we become; how are we any better than those monsters we fight?”

 

The woman visibly tensed. “What about the Joker?” She challenged him. “Where is the good in him?”

 

Silence.

 

“You tell me that, Bruce,” she hissed, “and I swear by Zeus and all the gods that I’ll bury my sword.”

 

“We’re better than that. We have to be better than that.”

 

“No! _You_ have to be better than that!” Diana pushed by Clark and strode towards the other man, eyes blazing. “You’re moral code won’t allow for you to be anything less. But I’m not like you, Bruce. I can’t be. I’m not strong enough. And I can’t… I can’t hesitate. If I hesitate on the battlefield one of my sisters could die. I can’t…”

 

“You’ve never killed with the League.”

 

“I’ve never had too! And I thank the gods’ everyday that it hasn’t come to that yet. But if that day comes I won’t…”

 

“You didn’t have to kill the man in our bedroom,” Bruce ploughed on, remorseless. “It wasn’t a battlefield. It wasn’t…”

 

“No! It was you! Can’t you understand that?! I love you!” Her voice dropped to a pained rasp and her angry glare melted. “I love you more than I thought possible and he tried to hurt you, to kill you.”

 

She looked vulnerable.

 

Hurt.

 

Alone.

 

Bruce was unfazed. “His name was Richard Willins. He joined a magical cult two years ago and…”

 

“I don’t care,” Diana croaked. “I know it isn’t right, I know it isn’t good but… I don’t care.” Her face was flushed and hands shaking as she met Bruce’s glare with a pleading stare. “Can’t you understand that? Can’t you see? He hurt my family. He hurt you… I… I wish…” she closed her eyes. “I wish it were as simple as math, Bruce. But it isn’t. I’m not saying what I did was right. It was wrong. I know. Everything I do is wrong. But I… I…” she sucked in a slow steadying breath and opened her eyes. “He wasn’t… he wasn’t… could never be… as important as you.”

 

Bruce’s response was immediate. “He was some mother’s son.”

 

She flinched.

 

Bruce read the weakness and attacked. Coolly taking apart the woman before him with practised, efficient, words. “You asked before about the Joker,” he said. Voice low. Eyes cold. “I have thought about killing him, Diana. I think about it every day. But it isn’t just that line in the sand that stops me. It isn’t just the darkness I would be stepping into to do that… it isn’t just surrendering to him… it’s that there is good. If not in _who_ he is then in _what_ he is.”

 

“Bruce…” Clark said softly. It was a small cry of mercy and went unheeded as he finished the final blow.

 

“He’s some mother’s son, Diana.” Darker. “Someone carried him like you’re carrying her. Someone, somewhere, held him once. Loved him once. He had a family once.” Bruce turned away. “And I’m no Joe Chill.”

 

The accusation was obvious.

 

It hung in the air like an arid smell, a poison, long after Bruce had pulled the cowl back over his head and disappeared out a gaping window. It landed heavy and square on the woman’s shoulders like a death sentence. It hit sure and hard like a bullet to the brain; irreversible, irrevocable, devastating.

 

“Diana, I’m…” Clark tried.

 

The woman shoved aside his tentative hands. “I told you nothing good would come of this, Clark.” Her voice was horse. Strained. “I told you.”

 

She left.

 

And then Clark was alone.

 

He had promised… he had tried…

 

Miserable the man pulled his knees into his chest, still in the air, and stared through the walls at the two people he loved departing in different directions. Felt the two way tug on his heart and knew with sudden certainty that no matter who he flew after it would break his heart.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's another long and 'chatty' chapter. I hope you all enjoy.

The marble was hard, cold, and dug painfully into her knees as she knelt before the statue and pulled her sword from its sheath to rest it across her offered palms. A sign of allegiance… and surrender. The weight of the blade was familiar and the polished edge fell naturally against the curl of her fingers.

 

“Athena.”

 

It was the only word she spoke; a single naming; a soft and simple prayer. Quiet enough to be swept away on the breath of the wind carrying with it the promise of a coming storm. The flutter of a dying fish against the roar of the entire ocean. Ignored and unheeded.

 

She doubted the goddess would have seen fit to hold an audience with her even if she had shouted and drove her blade into the breast of the statue. Sometimes she doubted if the gods had the power to respond at all. Doubted whether they could see or hear her praying by a stone carved in their image. Sometimes she doubted they were even gods. Perhaps they were just the remnant super humans of a bygone era. Perhaps they were just the collective willpower of a people forced into consciousness by the now latent human need to be controlled. Perhaps they were simply another race of beings yet to be categorised. Perhaps they too knelt before idols and whispered a name. Perhaps they too were ignored.

 

She gritted her teeth, kept her arms aloft, and her eyes closed.

 

Perhaps they too were too lost, too desperate, and too confused to do anything else.

 

“I have not seen you pray, Princess, since you were hip high.”

 

Diana didn’t open her eyes or turn towards the voice. Kept her arms up and her head bowed. “I was given my lasso through proving myself a true warrior and Amazon,” she muttered. “Not through begging.”

 

The voice was deep and distinctly – powerfully – female. “You beg now?”

 

“Yes.”

 

The sounds of the other woman’s skirts flapping in the wind accompanied the sharp slap of her sandals as she approached and bent down beside her. Together they knelt in silence until a rain touched gust of wind billowed through the open walls of the temple.

 

Nothing.

 

No gods, no great revelation, and no hand lowered in aid. The floor remained cold and uncompromising beneath her… the air empty... questions unanswered...

 

Diana opened her eyes and let her hands slump defeated onto her lap. The sword clattered onto the stark marble.

 

“I don’t know what to do, Magala.”

 

The other woman looked up. She wore a simple white robe but her throat and hair glittered with the gold of the royal house as did the perfect cut of the spotted pelt she wore draped over her shoulders. While she had never been the favourite wife of the queen the woman was loyal and had always been there when Diana was a child. After the betrayal of the sorcerers Circe, Magala was also the only magic user currently trusted and welcomed into the royal house.

 

“That is generally why one goes to the goddesses,” Magala replied with a quirk of her lip. She was a woman of few words. Powerful in her own presence but also reversed. Willing to observe and not interfere.

 

“My ladies!” A young red haired priestess bustled into the temple, a torch in one hand, and a basket full of bread propped against her hip. “I did not think anyone would still be praying with this storm cresting the horizon. Do you wish to make an offering? I see you haven’t anything to give. Please, take some of my bread if it pleases you.”

 

Neither spoke.

 

“Oh, forgive me,” the girl said quickly. “Do you seek assistance on the nature of the goddesses? I… admit I am new to this, my ladies, but I am willing to help you in any way I can. What is it you ask of the goddess?”

 

Magala’s gaze returned to Diana. Expectant.

 

“I…”

 

“Do you fear childbirth?” The girl interrupted her. “If so you are before the wrong goddess. Might I recommend Hera? As I’m sure you know her temple is joined to the hospice and is quite nicely indoors. Far better in this weather and far more suitable.”

 

“It’s not that,” Diana said. “It’s…” she hesitated, “… my partners.”

 

Magala’s face softened and her eyes deepened to deep black pools. Knowing. Understanding. Empathising.

 

“Aphrodite then,” the red head declared. “Though you will have to go in the morning. Her statue is in the gardens and has no protection against the elements.”

 

“Thank you, sister,” the royal consort spoke firmly. “You’re suggestions are most wise. Would you spare us for a time? I would like to be alone with the Princess.”

 

“Oh,” the girl blinked. “Very well. I shall… attend to my duties.” She gathered up her skirts and bustled out in the same short fast steps that carried her in, offering forgotten in the crook of her arm. Diana returned her attention to the woman knelling by her side.

 

Magala didn’t prompt or push. Merely bowed her head to the statue before them and stilled. Diana could not tell if she were waiting for her to speak, truly praying, or lost to the sound and smell of the looming storm.

 

When the sky finally relented and the rain thundered down onto the marble rooftop above, Diana spoke.

 

“I don’t understand how it went so wrong so suddenly. We weren’t perfect but we were together. We were all leaning on each other, helping each other, and…” her voice trailed away and she looked over at the woman beside her. “Did you ever do something that… that mother couldn’t forgive but you… couldn’t stop?”

 

“Your mother is my queen first and my lover second,” the woman answered matter-of-factly. “If my queen command I cease I cease.”

 

Diana looked down.

 

“But,” her voice rose crisp and clear over the sound of the rain. “I sense that is not the relationship you nurture with your own consorts.”

 

She numbly shook her head.

 

“Speak plainly child. What is it you have done?”

 

“I… killed a man.”

 

“Who?”

 

“It’s not important I…” she closed her eyes and suddenly the words were pouring out of her like flood water through the mouth of a river. “I’m a warrior, Magala. I have always been a warrior. As a warrior I must kill. I must. If it is in defence or in attack of my people then I can’t hesitate. If I hesitate in that situation innocent people die. They don’t understand that. One is more willing to accept it but neither of them truly understands what it means to be a warrior.”

 

“Are your wives not also warriors in the realm of man?” Magala asked.

 

Diana nodded.

 

“But they do not kill,” the other woman concluded.

 

She hung her head. “No but… it is not the same.”

 

“Do they not have enemies to fight, or people to protect?”

 

“They do,” Diana countered; her voice clipped with frustration, “but it is still not the same. They do not understand that sometimes there is no other choice. That sometimes a warrior _must_ kill and when that time comes a warrior must not hesitate. It was the first thing I learnt of the sword.”

 

Magala was silent for a time. When she spoke her voice was low soft and yet still carried unhindered through the sound of the storm. “This man you killed; did you have no other choice?”

 

Diana felt her throat tighten painfully. “I… did,” she rasped.

 

“I see.”

 

Those two words heaved a weight onto her shoulders heavier than anything Bruce had been able to conjure. A heavy, hopeless, guilt that had been present before, but not crushing. Now it was. Now it was so heavy it pushed a pained groan from her throat. So heavy it hurt.

 

“I never schooled as a priestess,” Magala said, startling Diana. “While I liked the stories I could never understand the happiness others found in serving something so distant and so cold.” She looked up and met the goddess’s stone stare. “But dare I say it you have come to the right place. Athena is the goddess of wisdom _and_ warfare. While you mastered the art of war long ago, Princess, I fear you struggle now to know the wisdom of how to use it.”

 

Diana couldn’t speak. Couldn’t use her voice in risk of it coming out broken.

 

She was right. Of course she was right. She spoke in the cool and calming tone of one assured in what she was saying but also detached from it. There wasn’t a hint of Clark’s hopeless desperation or Bruce’s justified anger. There was no betrayal between them. No wounded relationship or bleeding emotions. Just truth. Honest. Hard. Hurtful.

 

“I know… I just… I don’t know how…”

 

“When I was a child I set a girl on fire.”

 

Diana looked up, shocked.

 

Magala’s lip curled as she read her expression. “She was fine. Her hair was a little worse for the wear but no harm was done.” Her eyes grew distant as she looked passed the statue and into to gray black blur of rain beyond; the reflection of the storm flickering on the ghost white pillars. “She had been stealing my food and pushing me into trees,” Magala continued. “It was the first time I discovered my magical talent.” Gaze wistful. “That was almost three thousand years ago.”

 

Diana didn’t know what to say. Sat silently on the cold stonework. Waited. Could only guess at what the other woman truly saw gazing out into the raging body of the storm beyond.

 

“I refused to apologise,” the woman said. “The bitch deserved it and now she never stole from me or pushed me into trees. It seems silly now.”

 

“Who?” Diana croaked.

 

“You never knew her,” she waved away the question. “She died defending the island years before your time.” Dark eyes closed. “I never saw it happen. I just saw her on the pyre and… I had been in that fight. I was a sorcerer so I was back from the ranks. I saw the warriors falling into the water but none of them I knew until… until then…” she tugged the corners of her animal skin cloak around her. “It seems silly but I never did apologise.”

 

This pause was longer and stretched. Strained.

 

“I suppose that doesn’t make much sense,” Magala muttered. “If I were a priestess I could tell you a story that would have a deep moral message that would solve all your woes. If I were a bard I could keep you awake during its telling. Alas, I am neither. I suppose I…”

 

“It’s okay,” Diana promised. “I understand.”

 

Magala’s gaze returned to her. Despite the eternal youth of her face there was age in the way she held herself, in the pits of her eyes, and in her resigned posture. “We live forever here,” she said. “It is easy then to forget that beyond our borders things change with the fast paced urgency of the soon to be dead; with the sheer, brilliant, and bright _life_ of the doomed. We sit, stagnant, and believe ourselves beyond the reach of the mortal world. That their change does not matter. But that is not true. The presence of your men here proves that. The power the flying one holds proves it doubly so.”

 

She shifted, uncomfortable on the cold stone, but did not move.

 

“The realm of man is becoming closer and more powerful and it is because they are so capable of change. Change makes us strong and too we must also change if we are too survive in a world were men are more powerful than gods. A world where magic barriers that have stood for millennia begin to crumble enough for lost soldiers to wash up on our shore.”

 

Diana thought of Steve Trevor lying on his side in the sand, lips chapped, and skin puckered and peeling under the glare of the sun. He had been the first man she had ever seen and the flat square shape of his body seemed the result of some disastrous mutation. Loving him had been easy. Natural. Until it wasn’t.

 

She closed her eyes and sighed. It was only a few years ago but it seemed a lifetime.

 

“If we can’t bend then we break,” Magala continued. “If we can’t learn, and continue to learn, then how can we claim to be anything more than statues?”

 

“I understand,” Diana whispered hopelessly. “But that is not… it’s not what I’m here for…”

 

“You’re missing my point, Princess. Your men claim a right to the child within you,” Magala said softly. “I confess I find that most strange. What claim can they have on a child they did not bare? They did not carry? Did not birth? I know it is they who planted the seed but if I buy a seed, plant it, then I do not claim parenthood over the tree. No. I merely gave it the chance to happen. Mother Gaia is the one that carried the seed, grew it, changed it… she is the parent not I. How strange it is to think otherwise.” She folded her hands on her bent knees and sighed. “But then I think of you.”

 

Diana frowned. “Me?”

 

“When you were a child you were always the daughter of the queen,” the woman explained. “I knew you and you knew me but I was not your mother. I did not bare you or birth you and as such I knew I had no right to you.” A soft sigh. “I longed for it, Princess, for the right to comfort you when you cried, care for you when you were sick, and hold you when you were little. But you were not mine and that was the end of it.”

 

Diana stared at her. Shocked.

 

Magala gazed out into the storm. Her features soft and almost serene as she watched the droplets of water smash into the rocky turf beyond the open walls of the temple. Her hand clutched the knot in her cloak leaving a closed fist resting on her collarbone. Knuckles strained and white. The only hint of the emotion within.

 

“I have never been able to conceive despite coupling with both men and gods in my time. Now I have resigned myself to live without child. It hurts sometimes but it is an old wound and one that has healed long ago.” A small sad smile. “It is only now seeing your men claim rights to the daughter inside you do I think perhaps things could have been different. Perhaps I could have known motherhood despite never having a body able to bear the burden. Perhaps you didn’t need to have but one mother. Perhaps you could have known two.”

 

“Magala. I never…”

 

“This is better,” the woman said simply. “And _that_ is my point. It is better to know of the change, to learn, and to accept. To become better. This is a time of great change, Princess. For you and for all of the Amazon people but for you most of all.” She turned her head. The movement was slow, practised, and reserved and revealed nothing about the woman beneath. “You are to be a mother and for that you need to learn how to be better in every way you can,” she declared. “I will accept no less.”

 

“I will be,” Diana promised weakly. “I will.”

 

Magala tilted her head and regarded her. “I can not claim to speak for the goddess but perhaps to be a better warrior it is time you learnt to stay your blade. Perhaps that is the better change you can make here, now, that will bring down this wall you and your consorts have built.”

 

Diana looked down miserably at the sword on the stone before her. She had sworn to Bruce if he could tell her what good there was in the Joker she would bury it. He had.

 

She never thought it would be so hard to keep a promise.

 

But Magala was right. Of course she was. She was the most trusted advisor of the queen in times of peace. If her mother trusted her to tell her when to sheathe her sword how could Diana not? How could she turn aside the wisdom of someone who remembered the rebirth of their segregated nation? But how could she ignore what she was raised to be? How could she ever be happy with Clark and Bruce if she had to change who she was to be with them?

 

“I’m a warrior,” she whispered.

 

“You are,” the woman said. “And now it is peacetime.”

 

Peacetime.

 

The word should have been good. It meant victory, it meant safety, and it meant… uselessness. She had never mastered another craft beyond that of the warrior. She had never mastered a trade or…

 

“Sometimes I forget how young you are,” Magala said softly. “You have learnt and grown much in these last years since leaving the island but in many ways you are still a girl.” A playful smile flashed to life at the corner of her lips. “It seems but last moon your mother was still telling you that you were made from clay.” Her eyes sank to Diana’s rounded body. “Now you yourself are to be a mother.”

 

“How will I know?” Diana blurted out. “How will I know when peacetime ends? We fight in the lands of man almost constantly it seems. There is always a threat.”

 

“Leave it to the goddess,” the woman said.

 

Diana glanced at her, confused.

 

Magala leant forward, gingerly picked up Diana’s sword, and without a word rose to place the weapon on the alter at the goddess’s feet. The blade sat among the offerings of bread and brandy, exposed, and glittered along a sharpened edge.

 

“But…” Diana began… “That’s forged by the gods. I can’t just… leave it. Someone will steal it. I…”

 

“I will protect it,” Magala said softly. She ran her finger along the body of the blade and a series of purple lights flashed as she bound a spell to the object. “Only if it is needed will it be able to be removed.” She looked up at met Diana’s shocked stare. “You will know then, Princess. You will know.”

 

“But…”

 

Diana stared at the weapon. It was given to her by her mother. It was…

 

“I am aware you can kill in other fashions and so I know I don’t leave you defenceless. Nor am I taking this from you. Not truly. What is it then that you object to?”

 

“I…” she staggered to her feet. The world felt… strangely lighter. “I promised to bury it,” she said with a flicker of a grin. It… felt easy… the first easy smile that had graced her lips since Bruce had kicked her out of his home.

 

“Either way,” Magala said, “it shall be a symbol of your promise to change. Perhaps this way it can also be a little more public. There are, after all, a lot of young would be warriors strutting around with as much delusions grandeur as you.”

 

Diana blinked. “What did you just say?”

 

“Nothing a citizen could say to her princess,” the woman assured her. “But maybe something a mother could say to her daughter.” She pulled the hood of her cloak up over her hair and walked by the stunned warrior woman with the smooth graceful movements that first captured the heart of the queen. “Go back to your men,” she said as she passed. “Wrap your lasso around yourself and tell them what has happened. If they are as in love as you are they will take you back.”

 

“Magala…”

 

“Diana.” It was the first time the woman had used her name. “You have a gift in them. You have a family. For the love of Hera, don’t throw that away.”

 

"... thank you."


	30. Chapter 30

Numbers.

 

His world had descended into the hard mathematically drawn lines vector lines of digits strung in blocks across the screen of the computer. It was a code. A code he’d received years ago. A code composed of the first nine letters and a fat zero. A code lost with the secret sect that had used it. A code he’d never been able to break.

 

Bruce stared at the square blocks of numbers and recycled all the old ideas and theories he’d ever tried to unearth the meaning hidden underneath. Mentally applied all the code breaking techniques he knew and with a snarl ran it through every kind of scan on the computer once again.

 

Nothing.

 

Nothing but a random string of numbers.

 

But somehow there were words hidden in there, somehow there was meaning, and he had to find it. Because meaning, understanding, knowledge… it was all he had left. Numbers. All that had been left to him. All that remained.

 

He glared at a forlorn three sitting in the middle of its square segment of code. Three was a lot of things. It had as much cultural significance as the lucky seven sitting behind it or the composed thirteen if he read the one before it. An eight was above it and another one below. One. He didn’t like one. One was as primitive as his forefinger and as ugly as a skeleton. One was alone. He preferred the double half twirl of the three. It was inventive and shed the last straight ugly line of the one still tagged onto the end of the two. Three.

 

He liked three.

 

“Do you want a hint?”

 

“I thought I told you to fly to Pluto,” he growled back.

 

“I did.”

 

Bruce sighed. “I thought you were going with Diana,” he said softly.

 

Diana. The last loop of their threesome shorn off with the chiselled edge of a sword. Diana.

 

He missed her. He missed her more than he was entitled to. He had been the one that had kicked her out and he was still the one keeping them apart. He had to. He couldn’t let himself forgive… he couldn’t give… not on this. Because if he gave, even the slightest bit, he knew he would start slipping inch by inch down the steep slope towards the darkness below. He knew once he crossed that line that he would never come back. Diana could. Diana was strong. Strong enough to be able to swing down into a darkness deeper than he knew and also swing back to accompany Clark in the light. Only she… if only she… if only he… could love that. If only the darkness she could become wasn’t so… so wrong… so frightening… so horridly familiar…

 

They could be three.

 

And then they would be four.

 

“I did,” Clark said. “She went to the island. I did not think she wanted me to follow.”

 

“You should of,” Bruce growled.

 

Clark floated down beside him, unfazed. “It’s pretty hard,” he reasoned. “And it’s not really up your ally. It’s alright if you don’t get it, you know. It took me almost an hour.”

 

“Clark…”

 

“Hey, my family line has been genetically coded for this for thousands of years,” he reminded him. “I’m good at numbers.”

 

“She’s been pregnant for almost nine months,” Bruce reminded him. “You should be with her.”

 

Eyes flashed red. “So should you.”

 

Bruce looked away. “You know why I can’t do that.”

 

“Actually,” Clark said, “I don’t.”

 

Weakness and darkness… Mortality and brutality… Destructibility and corruptibility.  Clark wouldn’t understand. He was indestructible. He was incorruptible. He was… nothing like Bruce.

 

“She…”

 

“Make a mistake,” Clark interrupted him.

 

“She’s a killer.”

 

“You knew that when you first kissed her,” he said crisply.

 

“I knew she had killed in wars,” Bruce corrected him. “There was no war in that room that night.”

 

Clark sighed and raked his hand through his hair. Destroyed Superman’s carefully tailored curl in one foul swoop. “Honestly, Bruce, I don’t understand either of you. I don’t understand why she isn’t willing to show the guilt she obviously feels and I don’t know why you’re pretending there was no reason for her to act irrationally that night. It’s called a crime of passion.”

 

“That doesn’t make it right!”

 

“I know! But pushing her away, pushing _your daughter_ away, doesn’t either!”

 

Bruce swallowed the arid taste and forced his features into the mask of the Bat; pushed aside the trembling tenor of hurt and reconstructed his stale anger. It felt false and fake like an aged addict pretending he still sought pleasure in his substance and not normality. Not safety.

 

“Huh,” he rasped. “My daughter? Really?”

 

Clark glared at him. “What is that meant to mean?”

 

“You really believe there is any chance she is mine? That a human has any chance against you?” He glared back into red tinted eyes. “You’re superior in every way, Superman. In a mixed cocktail, who do you _really_ think has the fastest, strongest, sperm?”

 

It was a fragile and false. A twisted truth designed to push them apart. To rip apart the foundations of sharing, love, and togetherness that had held up their passionate love affair.

 

If only he could believe it.

 

If only it were that easy to sever all connections.

 

All feelings.

 

“Who do you think has the more combatable DNA?” Clark snapped. “You really think it’s likely that an alien with no common heritage has more chance of impregnating a super human than another super human?”

 

“I’m not super…”

 

“Yeah, right,” Clark said and rolled his eyes. “Forgot. It’s not ‘super’ at all to be in the top one percent of the world’s population.”

 

Through gritted teeth. “Actually it’s n…”

 

“Physically, mentally, _and_ financially. Nope. Not super at all.”

 

Bruce turned away and glared at the intelligible string of numbers. The scans had come back negative. The code glared down at him. Unbroken.

 

“She is _our_ daughter, Bruce. She is ours as much as she is Diana’s. You know that. Don’t try to push me away by pretending otherwise.” Voice dropped. “I know you too well for that.”

 

Bruce closed his eyes. “I know.”

 

“Then don’t do this,” the other man pleaded. “Don’t push her away. I know you and Diana… I know, okay? I know it’s fucked up what she did but that doesn’t change who she is. It doesn’t change the fact that the way you’re treating her is also fucked. We can work through this. We can come to an understanding.”

 

“Can we?”

 

“Can’t you empathise with her just a little?”

 

“No.” He couldn’t. Couldn’t risk it.

 

Wasn’t strong enough to swing back. Not from that.

 

“If not in the moment of the murder than in what came before?” Clark challenged. “Forgetting the hormones of pregnancy, of building and protecting, think about where she was raised. The Amazons are still a highly militaristic culture, still have an eye for an eye policy for felon crimes, and…”

 

“I know.”

 

“She has only been here two and a half years!” He cried. “And the only reason she’s putting up such a fight now is because you are. This has got to be hard for her Bruce. She has to redefine her whole…”

 

“I know!”

 

“Then why are you doing this?! Why won’t you even let her explain?!”

 

“She’s had plenty of opportunity to explain,” Bruce snarled.

 

“Not without you yelling at her! It’s been over a month, Bruce.”

 

“I know! Goddamn it Clark! I know.” He glared at that three still sitting unsolved within its muddle of letters. “She killed.”

 

“Can’t you just…”

 

“For me, Clark.”

 

A pause.

 

“So?”

 

“I’m going to get hurt,” Bruce said. “One day I’m going to die on those streets out there, or with the Justice League, or perhaps I’m going to be stabbed in bed. It doesn’t matter. I can’t be with someone who… who would kill for me. Not on this mission. Not if I’m Batman.”

 

Clark stared at him.

 

“And… I can’t… I can’t tell her it’s okay. If I tell her that… if I make it okay… then I’ll be telling myself that. I’ll… she is still Diana, Clark, but if I kill… I won’t still be Bruce.”

 

It was the closest thing to the truth he could muster. The closest thing he could construct. The only way he could hope to make Clark understand.

 

“You realise she thinks you think she’s a psychopath,” Clark said. There was accusation in his tone.

 

“I…”

 

“What she did was wrong. I know she knows that. But pushing her away isn’t helping. She needs someone to talk to and I… I can’t keep doing this, Bruce. I can’t keep bouncing between you two. I love you both and when I’m with you and not her or with her and not you it… hurts.”

 

“I can’t just…”

 

“You just told me this wasn’t about morality,” Clark said. His voice was horse and low. On the verge of breaking. “It isn’t. Not anymore. Because it’s not moral to do this. It’s not moral to push her away and pretend that’ll change what has happened.” A ragged gasp. “This is about you. The mission. The Batman… it’s all you. Just you. It has nothing to do with her. It should. But it isn’t. Not to you. Not anymore. Not really.” Clark paused. The silence filled by his breathing. Too heavy and too fast. “She’s hurting and I… I can’t… help her. We need you.”

 

Bruce sat still. His hands were balled into fists on his knees, shoulders hunched, and face forward.

 

It wasn’t true. Not… not entirely. But there was… something in his words. There was something blunt and ugly in the fraught accusations. Because while this was about Diana it was also about him. He couldn’t forgive her not because of what she had done but what it meant to him. He couldn’t empathise with her not because her case was entirely unsympathetic but because he couldn’t allow himself to see things from that side. He… she had hurt him. She had betrayed what he stood for and refused to… to even relent… to…

 

Clark was right.

 

Fuck.

 

“When did you become so…” he closed his eyes and swallowed the small, dejected, rasp that threatened to leach into his voice.

 

“Insightful?”

 

“Desperate,” Bruce corrected him.

 

“When you pushed it this far!” Clark exploded. “When Diana pushed it… I’m not like you two. I can’t… fuck.” He dropped like a stone the last few inches to the floor. “No. You’re right. I am desperate. I… I tried just letting you two talk but it didn’t work. Now I’ll beg.” Bruce flinched as Clark fell beside Bruce’s chair. His cape landed in a rumpled heap beside him and his hair had flopped forward over his eyes. “Can you please _please_ just give us another chance? I… I can’t… I don’t want this to be us. This can’t be us. We were so good. So right… us three.”

 

Three.

 

The most beautiful number.

 

Except for maybe four.

 

Numbers swam in blocks before him. An unbreakable code constructed from the ten digits crowning the top of the keyboard. An ugly organised mess hiding a dated message that he should know… he should know this. He should have known this a long time ago…

 

Should have known. Should know.

 

Diana.

 

“What’s the hint?”

 

Clark made a small, pained, noise and let his forehead drop against the armrest of the chair. “Bruce…”

 

“Is it…”

 

“Bruce?”

 

Diana.

 

Both men looked towards the monitors and the incoming message information that had sprung to life over the tangle of coded numbers. Diana was contacting him through the secondary Justice League intercoms. The call wasn’t marked as an emergency and her failure to use their superhero names substantiated that belief.

 

“Bruce. It’s Diana. Can we talk?”

 

Clark’s hand tightened around the armrest. Metal skeleton moaned.

 

The only reason she would be calling him like this would be to try and assure a greater degree of privacy. If she called the manor Alfred would be the one to receive the message and Bruce’s mobile was largely just for the public eye and would go ignored. A more general call would alert other members of the League but this… this was private.

 

“I’m in the cave, Diana,” he said softly. “You can come in.”

 

Clark’s face split into a half hopeful smile and he leant forward and kissed him. The touch was fast and fraught; a stolen moment of fleeting hope shared a scrape of stubble and skin. Clark withdrew from the contact, whispered a feverous thanks against his lips, and disappeared in a blur of movement.

 

Diana arrived thirty four minutes later.


	31. Chapter 31

Bruce and Diana talked for almost five hours. At some point they wrapped the lasso around themselves and now stood, forehead to forehead, within a tangled embrace of gold.

 

Clark floated just below the clouds as listened to their mumbled confessions.

 

Listened as Diana finally apologised and explained in pre-prepared sentences how she had felt that night, how she had rationalised her actions, and where she was now. Who she was now. He listened as she explained that she couldn’t promise him anything. That she was still a warrior and defender of her people. But she would try for him. She would try.

 

And he listened as Bruce admitted in a low baritone how much he feared losing her. How he feared losing himself. How important it was to stay in the light. How deep and dangerous the darkness was. The darkness inside. How hard it was sometimes. And how important she was. How he trusted her to keep him afloat and how terrified he was of sinking.

 

He listened as Diana swore she wouldn’t kill in revenge and Bruce promised he wouldn’t lock her out again.

 

He listened as the pair said almost in sync how angry they had been, how confused, how hurt… and how sorry they were now.

 

He listened as they told each other, whispered against gently brushing lips, that they loved each other.

 

They loved each other.

 

It was over.

 

Clark sighed and leant back into the body of a cloud behind him. Let the tension stored inside him wilt and flake away in the icy air. He didn’t have the energy to feel joy as he thought of the kissing couple below. He didn’t have the will to celebrate. Not in that moment. All he had the strength for was exhausted relief. A solider dropping to the ground and resting after a long and ugly war.

 

It was Bruce and Diana’s first fight… and it was over.

 

He silently swore to himself to do everything in his power to make sure it was their last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question!
> 
> Who here is a fan of this story swing? Or is everyone just looking forward to the foretold return of the all might smut? Neither? Both? It was a bit of an experiment and I would love to hear what you guys think.
> 
> Thanks for reading and (in case you'd forgotten) you rock. :D


	32. Chapter 32

She had expected it to be cautious.

 

Slow.

 

Soft.

 

Like a man walking for the first time after a long sickness, hands held wide like a child. Or a cook turning on the oven again after a mistake left an ugly burn along a previously soft forearm.

 

She had expected it to be filled with the tender tentative kisses Bruce and she had shared when bound in her lasso in the gaping maw of the cave. She had expected gentle exploration through previously known territory, skin shown and shared with slow sacred reverence, and promises and apologies whispered against loosely locked lips.

 

She was wrong.

 

It was rough, angry, and possessive. It was teeth, tongue, and fingers around her wrists hard enough to hurt. It was sex fuelled by the bruised and battered emotions left rendered raw after the last few weeks. A simple and savage revenge exacted against her for the past weeks apart.

 

It was make up sex.

 

But, most surprising of all; it was Clark.

 

Clark.

 

Gentle, careful, and kind… claiming her mouth in a brutal kiss, grinding almost painfully against her hip, and holding her down with enough force to make the wooden frame of the bed moan beneath them. Pinning her with one hand wrapped around her crossed wrists normally protected by her silver bracelets.

 

He held down Bruce with his other hand; palm planted sound and solid in the middle of a scarred chest. Hard enough just to labour his breathing but not dampen the fiery intelligence that flashed through pale eyes in the darkness. Eyes that watched with an almost hungry intensity as Clark brought her to a fourth starved orgasm grinding his thigh hard and heavy between her legs.

 

An indestructible mouth drew back to free the sounds spilling from the back of her throat. Frantic, fraught, and frayed. The exhausted whine of pleasure spilling haphazardly from the taunt wet point of her clitoris and racing through her veins in blistering hot spikes of release.

 

Still he didn’t relent. Kept the slow sure grind against the slick opening, planted his mouth hot and moist at the base of her throat, and seeped precome from the branding weight of his cock hard against her hip.

 

“Clark,” she gasped around sure to be swollen lips. “Oh… fuck… it’s too… Clark!”

 

Again.

 

She felt her aching body brim up and over its crest for fourth? No. Fifth. Or was it sixth? Ah. It didn’t matter… heat… pleasure… wet… worn…

 

He still hadn’t relented. Hadn’t given her a moment’s respite as he pushed against her with enough power to stop a train. Pressed unyielding flesh against the steaming wetness between her legs and forced another hot flush of pained pleasure through her body.

 

“I can’t take this,” she whispered. “Gods, Clark, I swear I… it’s too… much… Ah!”

 

Again. How. How could she be coming again? How could he keep forcing these short, painful, surges of pleasure through her? How? Just with a single, slow, grind against her. A grind strong enough to crush Bruce’s bones…

 

“Please…”

 

He rose from her throat and blinked down at her with eyes tinted a savage red.

 

“Why?”

 

She stared up at him in shock. He’d never let his eyes colour during sex before nor growled down at her like that.

 

Beside them Bruce twisted against the hand holding him and snarled. His body was quivering, skin developing a sheen of sweat, and chest heaving under the spread fingers of his alien bed mate. Eyes burnt with a baleful determination, teeth flashed in the rough shape of his unshaven jaw, and hands clawed at the indestructible bicep above him. A wild animal detained but not domesticated. Never domesticated.

 

With mixed feelings of relief and regret she watched the man above her turn his attention towards him.

 

The moment Bruce saw this he bucked up as far as he could to bite and tear at the other man’s bottom lip as it come into reach.

 

“Mine,” he growled between gritted teeth. “Mine.”

 

“Ours,” Clark corrected him and pushed him back down onto the mattress. “Together. You. Me. Diana.”

 

Bruce’s look was unreadable.

 

“Ours,” Clark snarled at him and sunk down to crush their lips together. “Ours.”

 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. She should have known. Perhaps some part of her did. Perhaps some part of her knew that after all this time Clark needed to steal back his own little piece of control. After this he needed own small sharp bit of vengeance against the two people who had thoughtlessly plunged him into a bleak black no mans land between them. The distance Bruce and her had forged between themselves had isolated them by their own engineering. Clark had been unwillingly forced to accommodate the space or risk ripping away half his heart to follow one yet abandon the other.

 

Diana gritted her teeth and pulled her hands free of Clark’s hold. Red eyes rounded on her but when he saw she made no move to leave relaxed.

 

“Stay,” he said.

 

“I’m not going anywhere, Clark,” she whispered, voice throaty and sore. “I’m right here.”

 

The colour in his eyes eased and his whole body shook with a sudden weakness. “Promise?”

 

A small, heart wrenching, question fell like a leaf caught in a stream. An estranged childlike plea tumbling unbidden from the lips of the most powerful man on the planet. Below him Bruce stilled. Breath hissed between clenched teeth, body heaved with unfulfilled need, and eyes watched with a masked interest. Dark. Intense. Dangerous.

 

“Promise,” she said.

 

It wasn’t a lie.

 

How could it be when she realised how utterly they both had betrayed him? Left him? Just as he promised he would never do to her. How could she not at least swear to him that she would be better, do better, upon realising the trial they had put him through? The unwilling and undeserved separation. The hopeless knowledge that nothing he could do could make things right again. The bone shaking fear that things might never be right again.

 

Last night had been about reconciling with Bruce. About drawing the white flag and rebuilding a burnt bridge between them.

 

Tonight was about the man caught in the middle of that bridge as it burnt.

 

Tonight was about Clark.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

The muscles in his back shivered and sagged. A small release of tension.

 

Wordlessly he fell onto Bruce and enveloped the other man’s lips within his own. The glitter of exchanged tongue accompanied with the aggressive flash of bared white teeth. Bruce growled in satisfaction, wrapped his legs around Clark’s hips, and arched up as much as he was able to crush their groins together. The touch cracked the kryptonian’s mask for a moment. His brow puckered, a soft sigh escapes his lips, and he let his hands slip to roam freely across the body below him.

 

Instantly Bruce moved to take the upper hand. He hoisted his body against Clark, shoved one side of himself against him in an effort to flip the man, and kicked his legs free to mash his hardened length into Clark’s hip.

 

Clark’s eyes flashed red and he pushed Bruce back down and fell on top of him with a force that spoke of a secret use for his power of flight. He didn’t weigh much more than the other man but Clark didn’t need to brace himself against anything to be able to kick back. Equipt with his ability to move through air he could choose not to be thrown and remain in place despite the strength and leverage of the scar strewn vigilante below him. It was a power he had not exercised in the bedroom before.

 

“It’s my turn, Bruce,” Clark whispered against his skin. “My turn.”

 

Steel blue eyes met red rimmed sapphire with a hungry fascination.  “Yours?”

 

“Ours,” came the growled response. “Ours.”

 

A small flicker of a smile. “Ours,” Bruce agreed.

 

Clark groaned and fell forward to press his body against Bruce’s, crush their lips together, and pin him into the firm white matress below.

 

Diana propped herself up on the headboard of the bed and discreetly tucked her leg under herself. Her heel pressed against the still wet warmth of her cleft now throbbing back into life at the sight of her two lovers tangled together in a mess of limbs and deep chested grunts as their erections crashed haphazardly into each other.

 

As she watched Clark reached down to capture the twin organs in a vibrating fist. A broken snarl burst from Bruce’s throat as he rocked his hips forward into the accommodating hand. The bodies of their cocks rubbed together, leaking heads knocking into each others abdomens, and thrusts clumsily matched.

 

The air was filled with the scent of sweat, sex, and the audible slap of their bodies as they pushed together with the mismatched buck and roll of chiselled hips.

 

A fresh wave of warmth flooded down the side of her leg. She was wet. Wet despite the wear of her pregnancy and the dull ache of Clark’s brutal treatment of her. Newly wet despite the still fading frenzy of the high harried orgasms forced from her. Wet for these men, _these men_ , who were together, hers, and the most disgustingly beautiful thing she had ever seen. Hungry, desperate, and open as their retrospective masks fell to pieces with every poorly parallel thrust.

 

In that moment she wondered how she had ever been able to walk away from them. How she had not be willing to push, fight, and plead for everything to be as it should be between them. How Clark had been the only one to reach out and try repeatedly to pull them back together.

 

In that moment she wondered how she had ever gone without the feel of them, the taste of them, the sight of them… rocking, panting, and… they swore as Bruce slipped from Clark’s grip and together paused to quickly realign themselves. Bruce sunk his teeth into the other man’s shoulder and reached down to interlock his own hand with Clark’s fingers. They began grinding again.

 

Quickly reaffirmed their previous urgent motion.

 

Gasps built to grunts. Grunts smudged into groans. Groans peaked with broken mo…

 

“Fuck,” Clark tore his hand free and seized the bed’s headboard. Wood splintered under his fingers. “I… I haven’t since…”

 

Bruce snarled in frustration and bucked angrily against the body above him. The headboard split in two with a loud crack.

 

“… harder to control…” Clark hissed around gritted teeth. “… Sorry I… I…”

 

“Would you rather fuck me?”

 

The question took both of them off guard. Diana stopped and stared while Clark blinked down at the man below him; a swirling cocktail of shock and open mouthed desire flooding unchecked across his features. Neither of them had ever done anything anal in her presence. Neither had ever given any hints that they were even remotely interested in that kind of thing. Yet here, out of the blue, Bruce was suddenly asking to be fucked. His voice the same hungry baritone of the Batman.

 

“Y-yeah,” Clark stammered.

 

Her lips quirked in a small, shaking, smile. Ah.

 

Even like this – red faced, raw, and on the verge of an orgasm – Bruce had managed to knock aside the other man’s presence of dominance. A dominance he claimed and maintained as he hooked his legs over Clark’s hips and arch up to seize those alien lips in a hungry, tooth lined, kiss. The Kryptonian’s response was immediate, powerful, and coloured by an obvious uncertainty as he fumbled with his cock.

 

“I…” Clark rasped. “I’ve never… I don’t…”

 

“I do,” Diana said.

 

Blue eyes turned gratefully towards her as she moved to press herself hip to hip with the would be top. She reached out and pressed at the hard contours of his muscles in a practised pattern; forced him to relax under her touch with a series of small super strong pinches placed precisely at alien pressure points. It was a practise that went beyond thier romantic relationship. Born of a shared understanding that they alone held enough strength to work away knotted muscle and sooth battle worn flesh on bodies as incredibly powered as their own, and carried by the mutal need to force nigh on indestrutable bodies to surrender into induced relaxation; this was something they had shared for years.

 

A bond. A trust. A small, known, series of motions that silenetly and simply promised a chance to let down...

 

Bruce lay sprawled before them.

 

The overly sweet smell of sex and unfulfilled need fell off his skin in waves, steel blue eyes carried a hot blooded challenge, and taunt muscle twitched and quivered with unmasked anticipation. The tip of a tongue appeared to lick lips red, wet, and swollen from constant attention.

 

The sight almost disarmed her.

 

Struggling to keep her hands slow and steady she reached between her legs and slicked her palms with the warm wet trickling down her thighs. The brief contact jolted her as the nerves in her legs fired. 

 

She wrapped one hand around Clark’s weeping member and quickly coated him in the lubrication. He sucked in a heavy breath and rocked forward to cover the side of her face in random messy kisses.

 

Hot… so hot…

 

Hot enough to send a violent shiver of naked desire through her body. Hot enough to rip a wanton moan from her lips. Hot enough… No. She couldn’t stop… couldn’t now… not when… Bruce.

 

Still holding Clark she pushed the first finger on her other hand into Bruce. He flinched but rolled his hips forward to draw her in deeper and knock the tip of her finger against the warm swell of his prostate. Tight… so tight… and Clark was so big… and threatening to grow bigger within the wet clench of her fist.

 

Bruce shivered as she massaged the penetrated pucker of muscle; hissed through his teeth as she added a second finger; and arched his body as she spread him. Clark was still attacking the side of her face; tracing the line of her jaw with wet kisses that enveloped her skin, licking her cheekbone, and nibbling almost too hard at her ear. As he began to move down her neck she pushed in a third finger.

 

Enough it… he was so distracting… it would be…

 

Bruce was grinding against her, fisting his own cock, and grunting in time.

 

“That’s enough…” she whispered and withdrew her fingers. “You can now… go slow…”

 

It was all the prompting he needed.

 

She slumped down beside Bruce and reached out to run her hand slowly over the washboard of muscle standing with tailored certainty along his body. He tensed as Clark entered him and she stoked his side reassuringly. A rider carefully taming a spirited horse as it tasted the bit for the first time.

 

And it was his first time, she realised. At least, the first time with anyone as big as Clark. It had to be. His reaction was too strong for it to be anything but.

 

Two high spots of colour stained normally pale cheeks, hands clenched to white knuckled fists, and mouth hung open, gasping for air. His brow puckered and he slammed his mouth closed as Clark pushed in deeper; swallowing the traitorous cry of pain that threatened to stop the slow act of penetration. It was a futile deception.

 

“Are you…?” Clark began.

 

“I’m fine.” Voice dangerously low.

 

“If I’m hur…”

 

“I’m fine,” he snarled. “Come on.”

 

Clark hesitated.

 

“Come on!”

 

He planted his hands on Bruce’s hips, pulled him forward, and sheathed himself in one smooth motion.

 

This time Bruce didn’t swallow his cry.

 

Diana pulled herself up, pressed her lips against his, and felt the vibration of his voice through her lips as she tasted the sharp salt of his sweat and the dark intoxicating musk that was Bruce. Ran her hands over his body in slow, relaxing, movements. Felt him respond. Felt him kiss her back with a dash of his usual assertive dominance. Broken by a pained intake of air.

 

Clark was moving. Body twitching, face red, and hair stuck to his forehead in a tangle of messy curls. He rocked. Millimetres. Unable to hold himself back.

 

“God… fuck…”

 

“Slowly, Clark,” she warned.

 

“I can’t… I need…”

 

Bruce was squeezing her hand hard enough to break the bones of a normal human. Teeth pressed together. Eyes alight behind heavy lids.

 

“… you two… I can’t… need you both… together… this… everything… ours.”

 

“Ours,” Bruce echoed between gasps of air. “Ours.”

 

He began to thrust in earnest and Bruce arched against him; pain and pleasure at war across his features.

 

“Ours,” she whispered as she watched in awe.

 

Perfect. They were so perfect. Beautiful. Highlighted by the flush of their skin, the shine of sweat slicked bodies, and the messy soundscape of their shared pleasure; starved, sloppy, and synced. Inexperienced, new, and coloured by the awkward tangle of limbs and strange bends of body… and yet still somehow better than anything she could have ever imagined. Anything she ever had imagined.

 

He was hurting Bruce.

 

That was evident.

 

But so was the unravelled need plastered across Clark’s face. So was the urgent desperate twin motion of their bodies. So was the unguarded deep rooted satisfaction in Bruce’s eyes. He knew pain. He could work through pain. He could defeat pain. Pain had never stopped him before. Pain would not stop him now.

 

The only thing that would stop him, could stop him, was pleasure. The pleasure of his used and ravaged body, the pleasure of the success of his seduction, and the pleasure of losing control. It became clearer with every thrust, with every stroke of his hand up his cock, and with every sound that escaped through gritted teeth, until there was nothing else.

 

Nothing but the cresting peak of a messy, mangled, orgasm.

 

The two came in stereo. Come splashed haphazardly between them, mouths crashed together, and limbs flung wide to sweep the silken skin of the bedding until they found her.

 

She gasped in shock as she was pulled firmly against the hard lines of their bodies and caught up in a strange three way share of open mouths and wandering tongues. Their bodies were still awkwardly tangled but somehow also open to her. She kissed, licked, and sucked without knowing or caring which pair of lips belonged to which man. Relaxed into the welcoming bodies of her men and groaned in primeval satisfaction as they wrapped their arms around her and the round swell of her stomach. Touched with a tender knowledge that this was both part of her and protection for the being that would finally make them a family.

 

"Ours."

 

Three… four…

 

Together.

 

Slowly the urgent kisses melted into sleepy brushes of salty skin, rough wanton grips slackened into soft strokes, and breathing evened into the cool deep movement of air that spoke of a well deserved exhaustion. Bruce fell asleep first; body strangely pilant and boneless around her. Clark took the time to nuzzle between them and make sure both Diana and Bruce were trapped in the deliberate sprawl of his arms before closing his eyes. Diana lay awake, let the fluids dry on her body and felt the small bumps and kicks in her belly as their unborn daughter settled for the night.

 

She had expected a strained forgiveness.

 

She had expected a slow burn return of their previous passionate affair.

 

She had expected secret resentments hidden behind a faded knowledge of love.

 

She was wrong.

 

And never had she been more glad of the fact.


	33. Chapter 33

Bruce and Diana were fighting again.

 

Over wool.

 

Diana wanted the mixed fibre wool to make a baby blanket. It was the only kind that came in the soft light blue. Bruce wanted pure sheep wool for its practical uses. It only came in seven shades of blue. None of them compared to the sky blue of the mixed.

 

Clark leant back in his chair and watched them bicker over the sample book with a smug smile.

 

Small fights. That was the ticket. Small pointless confrontations that wouldn’t last the hour but would starve off the massive monstrous battles like they suffered through last month.

 

He wondered how long it would be before they discovered the list of possible preschools he’d left open on the computer or toys he’d circled in the catalogues. Hopefully before tempers cooled. It was tricky tailoring the small string of arguments that kept up the hearty pace of harmony, tension, and vigorous round of make up sex going. It was easier when they all happened in quick succession.

 

They broke apart with frustrated sighs, dropped the sample book on the table, and left the room through two different doors.

 

No agreement.

 

That was good. He could use it again later.

 

Clark wondered if he could trick them into simultaneously buying him socks of their preferred wool. It would be tricky… but do-able. It may cause a bigger fight however. Something to handle with caution… to be stored away for a rainy day.

 

Bruce swore under his breath in the other room, stormed back in, and dropped two takeout menus onto his lap.

 

“I know what you’re doing.”

 

He feigned innocence.

 

“Huh? Do you want take out tonight?”

 

Eyes dark. “The two menus you have on your fridge just happen to be from the one place I love and Diana hates and the one place she loves and I hate?”

 

“I like them both,” he evaded. “And it is my apartment.”

 

Bruce’s glare was cold enough to freeze the sea.

 

“Look,” Clark said with a grin, “I don’t know what you think I’m doing but I happen to like both of these places. It’s why I keep their menus.” A sly grin. “I’m sure Diana wouldn’t mind some take away tonight. Why don’t you go ask her?”

 

Bruce leant forward and put both hands on the armrests of Clark’s chair; threw his shadow down like a challenge and trapped him on his seat. When he spoke his voice was low and dangerous. A warning growl echoing threateningly from his throat. “This isn’t something you want to start with me, Kent.”

 

“I’ll cook dinner if it offends you that much,” Clark replied slowly. “I’m afraid I don’t have much in the house. Just... two things actually.”

 

A angry growl accompanied a ripple of tightening muscle along his body.

 

“Hey,” Clark leant forward and placed a light kiss on his lips. “Let me have this one, okay?”

 

Eyes impossibly dark. Unreadable.

 

“I have to go to work soon anyway.”

 

Unblinking. Silver framed black.

 

“Why don’t you watch a movie?” Clark tried. “There are two beside the TV," he added with a flicker of a grin.

 

Bruce leant in closer. “It is a grave mistake, Superman, to assume just because you can’t feel pain…” he rumbled. “I can’t hurt you.”

 

Clark grinned. “Bring it on.”


	34. Chapter 34

“I won’t do it.”

 

“You have to do it.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“Then, you’re fired.”

 

Clark stared at him in disbelief. He still wore his work clothes, now rumbled from his flight, and hovered in the middle of the room behind a pair of fists clenched tight enough to crush diamonds.

 

“You can’t do this, Bruce,” he snarled. “You can’t.”

 

“I can and I have,” the other man responded flippantly and offered him a plate of cookies. “Want one?”

 

Clark glared down at the treats and angrily pushed the plate aside. “This is _my_ job.”

 

“Working at _my_ newspaper,” Bruce replied.

 

“You can’t buy the Daily Planet!” He exploded. “You can’t!”

 

“No, I can’t,” Bruce agreed easily. “Because I already have.”

 

Eyes flashed red. “God damn it, Bruce. Why?”

 

Bruce took a cookie and shrugged.

 

Diana stared at him for a moment before turning her gaze back to Clark. This whole situation had burst in the window less than five minutes ago but had already escalated to a floating red eyed Clark caught in alarming contrast with the surprisingly nonchalant Bruce.

 

“Is this about this morning?” Clark asked incredulously. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been provoking you two, okay? Lesson learnt. Now will you please sell my newspaper off to some other billionaire?”

 

“You mean _my_ newspaper.”

 

“Come on, Bruce! This isn’t funny.”

 

Diana hid her smile behind a raised glass of water.

 

Clark glared at her.

 

“What exactly did you think would happen when you asked me to ‘bring it on’?” Bruce asked as he slumped back into the couch. “A kinky sex session with the lasso?”

 

Diana choked on the water and rocked forward, coughing into her hand.

 

“I…” Clark hesitated, “it’s… that’s not important!”

 

“No, I don’t suppose it is. Either way, you’re reporting on that debate. I’ve already requested you personally.”

 

“A debate on which civilization invented the fork,” Clark specified. “I already told you. No.”

 

“It was the Amazons,” Diana said, surprising them both. “In case you were wondering.”

 

Clark frowned. “No it wasn’t it was…”

 

“See,” Bruce said with a sharp smile. “I knew you’d enjoy it.”

 

“That’s not the point!”

 

Bruce sighed and shrugged aside his smile to look up at the other man earnestly. “I bought the newspaper two days ago, Clark.”

 

He blinked. “What? Why?”

 

“Luthor was buying it.”

 

Clark stared at him. “No… I would have heard…”

 

“He was buying it though a number of different trust funds and false identities along with a number of other pro Superman news outlets.” Bruce’s gaze was locked onto Clark; honest, brutal, and unfaltering. “I let him have some to make him think it was just coincidence and bought up a number of others in another reckless move that’ll have the investors shaking their heads.” He leant back and sighed. “Bruce Wayne has to do something like that from time to time anyway.”

 

Clark was silent for a moment. “And the fork thing?”

 

“ _That’s_ revenge for this morning.”

 

“But… Bruce why would…”

 

“He’s trying to obstruct the media,” Bruce replied. “I doubt he has any greater motive than staggering the stream of goodwill towards the Man of Steel in the Metropolis headlines but just in case I’m watching him.”

 

A squaring of shoulder. “I can handle Luthor.”

 

Bruce lifted an eyebrow. “And if he’d closed the paper down?”

 

Clark was silent.

 

“I like the Daily Planet,” Bruce said simply. “It’s friendly, local, and strangely honest. Is it so offensive that I fund it?”

 

“It’s my job,” Clark rallied. “I don’t want you dictating what I write anymore than Luthor.”

 

“I own the Gotham Gazette.”

 

Diana looked at him in surprise. “But they hate Batman.”

 

“And love Bruce Wayne,” Clark grumbled.

 

“If it offends you so much I’ll sell once Luthor has lost interest again,” Bruce muttered. “But you’re still covering the forks.”

 

“I don’t want to cover your forks!”

 

“If that’s the headline, I’m sold,” Diana said with a grin.

 

Incredulous red eyes turned towards her. “You’re taking his side?”

 

“From what I hear you have been ‘provoking’ us. I think this a justified vengeance.”

 

“Justified! Look, I know you two might not understand this but writing is the only thing I don’t have… super ability in. If I achieve in that newsroom it’s me running and winning a fair race. And it feels bloody good when I do. It feels good when I get a headline because I worked hard. I don’t want to be the guy that gets the stories because he fucks the boss.”

 

“Nobody knows you’re…” Diana trailed off.

 

“You’re being optimistic if you think the fork debate will amount into a story,” Bruce said through tightly curled lips. “But, if it means that much to you, I can sell up. I’m sure Luthor will let you spread your creative wings.”

 

“I…” she croaked.

 

“You want me to thank you for shoulder charging aside my villain?” Clark said in disbelief. “Okay. Fine. Thanks for beating Luthor into stealing away my independence. It was so nice of you to take his place for him.”

 

“You’re being irrational,” Bruce snapped. “I’m not going to touch your bloody paper.”

 

“Hey I…”

 

“I know you, Bruce. You can’t help yourself. You get your nose into everything.”

 

“I think…”

 

“Fine,” Bruce growled. “Don’t go to the fork thing.”

 

“My…”

 

“I won’t!” Clark yelled.

 

“I was just trying to protect you.”

 

Clark closed his eyes. “That’s not fair…”

 

“What isn’t?” Bruce rumbled.

 

“That,” he said. “Look, Bruce, I love you and I know you mean well but you’re risking your secret identity, your spending money, and all it’s doing is drawing Luthor’s eyes from the paper to you.”

 

“I think my…”

 

“I can handle it,” Bruce declared.

 

“So can I,” Clark countered. “If I need your help let me ask for it. Please.”

 

“Fine,” Bruce sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t think this was…”

 

“Hey!”

 

They both finally looked up at her.

 

She sat for a moment, glass of water held shaking in her hand, and a ragged glare fixed on the two men.

 

“What?” Clark began.

 

“My waters broke.”

 

He stared at her. “What?” He repeated, a small shiver carrying away the end of the word.

 

Her glare was withering. “Labour, you idiots, I’ve just gone into labour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go folks. Any votes for baby names?


	35. Chapter 35

“Hey.”

 

She blinked up at him. Her eyes were foggy, lips pinched, and hair already wild and tangled around her. As he watched the frame of her collarbone ducked in and out of view with heavy slow, timed, breath of air. A small trembling smile snaked across her lips.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Clark’s gone to stop a bridge falling down,” he said and sank down in to the empty chair by her side. “He’ll be back soon.”

 

A rough nod.

 

He hesitated. “You’re… doing okay?”

 

Another nod.

 

“Good I… good work.”

 

Her lips bent into a small smile. “Clark’s better at this bedside stuff,” she muttered.

 

“I know.”

 

He hated to admit it but Clark was a lot better at this than he was. He was excited, encouraging, and could make her smile in the middle of a contraction. He… couldn’t… wasn’t… he hated this. Hated only being able to watch and wait. Hated being useless as she powered through the pains of her labour. Hated not being able to help.

 

She lay on her back in one of the beds at the bat cave, her vitals and that of their daughter displayed big and bold across a monitor at her side, and the sheets torn off to allow her free movement. He’d been surprised when she’d asked to come here. He’d always assumed she would want to give birth among the Amazons.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to your island?” He said. “I’m sure we can make it there before she arrives once Clark gets back.”

 

“No,” the woman forced a grin. “There hasn’t been a birth there in seventy years. They’ll all crowd around and sound trumpets. I would rather stay here.” She reached up and pushed some hair from her face. “You’ve got more medical supplies here than most hospitals and it feels as much home as Paradise Island now.”

 

He would rather she move to Paradise Island. Would rather have something to do. Something to organise.

 

Anything than just sitting and waiting.

 

Useless.

 

“Master Bruce.”

 

He looked up.

 

“Can I speak to you alone for a moment?”

 

Diana’s smile faded as she looked nervously between the two. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

 

Bruce didn’t move.

 

The butler sighed and peeled off the medical gloves. “It is nothing to worry ourselves about yet but you’re not dilated enough for the contractions you’re having.” He looked towards Bruce. “I doubt it’ll cause problems. You’re likely to dilate before the baby is born. But just in case you don’t we need something that will be able to cut your skin.”

 

“Clark?” Bruce suggested quickly.

 

“I’m afraid if the child in question isn’t half super powered alien we run a risk of hurting her,” Alfred said. “Heat vision might work but if we have another option I would prefer it.”

 

“God forged,” Diana said. “It’s different from magic. Like my lasso. But you need a…”

 

“A blade,” Bruce finished for her.

 

“My sword,” Diana groaned.

 

“Where is it?”

 

“Paradise Island. The temple to Athena. It… you won’t get it. It’s got a spell on it.”

 

He lurched to his feet and strode towards the shadow of his jet. “I’ll get it.”


	36. Chapter 36

Diana stared at the monitors beside her and listened to the departing echo of Bruce jet. The quivering lines she’d been told spoke of her incoming contraction. The rapid bounce beside it was the heartbeat of their unborn daughter.

 

“If he can’t get the sword…” she began.

 

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Alfred interrupted her. “You’re progressing normally.”

 

She blinked. “But…”

 

“He’s done far more impressive things than pick up a god forged sword from a magical island in an hour,” the butler replied. “He’ll be back before the birth.”

 

“But why…?”

 

“Do you not know, Princess?”

 

She did. Bruce had been practically biting his fingers to the bone, metaphorically speaking, since they’d arrived in the cave. He could wait for hours in the cold without moving for a drug dealer to wander into his sights, or a crime boss to unthinkingly utter the small little confession that would have Batman smashing through windows a moment later. Waiting for a baby was apparently a whole different ball game. It had been pulling him apart at the seams.

 

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I know.”

 

Clark sailed into the cave in a blur of primary colour and sunk into the chair Bruce had just left.

 

“Hey.”

 

She smiled up at him.

 

“Hey.”


	37. Chapter 37

The night air was crisp, clean, and scentless above the stinging cold layer of piebald cloud. The moon stared down at the wanton sprawl of Gotham glittering seductively below and reaching through a tangled mesh of smaller towns and highways towards the blazing brilliance of Metropolis.

 

Clark watched as Bruce slowly approached; a sleek black streak through the moonlit sky.

 

“I was expecting the jet,” he called as the man drew abreast with him.

 

“So was I,” Bruce growled, his voice lost to anyone not empowered with super hearing.

 

He sat on top of the massive black winged horse that had galloped him into the sky the night of their marriage to Diana, was wrapped in a thick red travelling cloak emblazed with the gold afforded to an Amazon princess, and held the unbridled animal’s streaming black mane with a loose confidence.

 

“Last time you rode that you fell.”

 

“You were there to catch me.”

 

“Are you going to fall now?”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

At a nudge the animal dove towards the scandalous sprawl of the city below, dodged around the tail of a plane with a heart stopping spiral, and aimed towards the distant darkness of the Palisades. Clark drifted after him; lazily riding in the tail wind and admiring the calm cool colours of the world around him.

 

He knew, at a time like this, he should feel panic. He should be pacing by Diana’s bedside, feverishly sharing his excitement with Bruce, or memorising the last moments of Diana’s pregnancy. The pregnancy that changed everything between them. That brought their love affair full circle and changed it into a family.

 

A family that endured despite everyone’s obvious differences, despite the fights they’d had, and despite the alienation of their definitively different origins. A family built around the promise of their daughter. A daughter from three houses.

 

Kent. Wayne. Prince.

 

Bruce’s horse landed heavily on the lawn behind the manor, cantered forward a few paces, and lowered her nose to the neatly cropped green of the grass at her hooves. Snorted in appreciation and nibbled happily.

 

“You didn’t fly that thing all across the Atlantic did you?”

 

“No, just to the Justice League teleport point just off Spain and from the one just off Gotham.”

 

“What happened to the Jet?”

 

“It’s on Themyscra. Ran out of petrol.”

 

“It... what?”

 

Bruce swung down from his horse, patted her side, and marched towards the manor. Clark drifted after him secretly enjoying the rich red colour of Bruce cloak and how it matched almost perfectly the colour of his cape. When they entered Bruce quickly received the positive status report from Alfred before sending the startled butler outside to find a place for the mythical creature grazing on their lawn.

 

“Were you in on this?” He growled over his shoulder at Clark.

 

“Not until after you were gone.”

 

He marched down into the cave, walked up to Diana, and dropped by her side. The woman sat on her bed, face worn from hours of labour, and gaze carefully reserved.

 

“You didn’t get the sword,” she noted as he wordlessly shrugged out of the Amazon clothing.

 

“No.”

 

“It’s not like you to give up.”

 

“I found Magala,” Bruce said to her. “She told me the exact words of the spell.”

 

“So?”

 

“Needed,” Bruce responded. “The sword couldn’t be retrieved unless it was _needed_.” A small shared moment of silence. “Once I knew the sword wasn’t needed, that you and Alfred had lied, that it was all a distraction… I came home.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Diana sighed. “You were just so…”

 

Bruce smiled softly. “Thank you.”

 

Diana looked at him for a moment before sighing. “You’re welcome.”

 

It was an encompassing gesture; a thank you not just for the distraction, not just for the chance to do something through all the waiting, but a delayed appreciation for what Diana had given up for him when she laid down her sword. When she allowed it to be bound in place with enough magic to keep even Clark from lifting it. It was a thank you for all the time they had shared and all they had struggled through.

 

It was a thank you for being there when he got back.

 

Clark sank down on the other side of Diana and wiped the condensation of the clouds off his face with the edge of his cape.

 

“You two worry me sometimes,” he muttered.

 

“Oh,” Diana rasped sarcastically. “Why is that?”

 

“Redundant quests for magical swords, a legally lesbian wedding, and the best god damn sex ever had,” Clark began pointedly. “I’m just a little bit worried that you two are going to be the greatest adventure of my life.” He flopped back on the bed behind him. “If that adventure is going to be as turbulent, as bewildering, as insane as these last few months… let’s just say I’m glad I have an indestructible heart."

 

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult,” Diana noted.

 

Bruce grunted his agreement.

 

“You two,” Clark sighed. “We're superheroes, now princesses, and about to become parents to a girl who'll have family from Krypton, from Themyscra, and from the crime capitol of the world.  And through it all, the good and the bad, I'm just... just glad..." he raked his hand through his hair. "You’re… so beautiful, so stressful, so passionate, so overwhelming, so… I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know this relationship just… happened. I know we were just having some fun and this pregnancy changed things so swiftly so suddenly and I’m still reeling from it all… but I’ll always be glad it did.” He looked up at them. "I'll always be glad to have you two."

 

Saw Diana’s smile and the small unmistakable softening in Bruce’s eyes.

 

“I love you. And you.”

 

“You too,” Diana replied. “And you.”

 

“Likewise,” Bruce muttered. Frowned. “And likewise.”

 

Clark grinned. “That’s going to get even more confusing in an hour or two.” When three became four. When he would finally be able to hold the little girl blinking angrily around at the shivering walls of the womb around her. When they would finally _finally_ become a family.

 

Diana flinched, touched her swollen belly, and restarted the slow, deep, breathing that had carried her through her labour so far.

 

Almost there.

 

Almost.

 

And nothing; not nightmares that drowned out the whole world, blood stained sheets and bloodier mistakes, or jokes about kryptonite in coffee that secretly had cured his addiction to caffeine could stop them getting there in the end. Together.


	38. Chapter 38

She was born at two twelve in the morning of October twelve.

 

Wriggling, wet, and loud, she was passed between the three parents until the exhausted mother held her to her breast to finally quiet the shrill cries. Skin red, tiny fingers fisting and stretching in the cool clean air, and head crowned with a messy crest of black curls.

 

For the first night they called her theirs.

 

The next morning they called her Elena.

 

It was a name that belonged to both the Amazons and the rest of the world, it was a name that spoke of the fierce fiery blue intensity of her eyes, and it was a name that was printed three times onto the paperwork that would create the three separate identities she could choose to inhabit.

 

Elena Martha Wayne.

 

Elena Martha Kent.

 

Princess Elena of the Amazons.

 

To her parents, she was just Elena. Their Elena. No titles, no crude declarations of heritage or ownership. Just Elena. Just theirs. The small little thing, the blue eyed girl, who had changed everything with the sound of her heartbeat nine months ago. Who changed everything all over again with the touch of her skin, the deep rasp of her breathing, and the small little movements as she slept safe within the tangle of limbs that held her. Elena.

 

Their first.

 

Their second came less than two months later; a young boy plucked from the circus floor and the murder of his parents by the Prince of Gotham. Dick Grayson. The ward quickly accepted the strange and secret nature of the family that had taken him in and the big eyed baby girl that was shared between them. Ten months later, when he followed the Dark Knight onto the streets for the first time, the girl happily sang out her first messy sentence.

 

“Daddy ahh Dicky!”

 

Her cry was echoed across the city that night. Changed only by the application of their adopted alias.

 

Batman and Robin.

 

A few days later she would walk for the first time across the warm yellow grass outside the Kent Farm. The achievement was celebrated with cake. The dessert itself was mostly consumed by Dick. Elena was more interested in twisting a fork until it was nothing more than a ball of misshapen metal which her red caped father quickly claimed as a mantle piece ordainment.

 

She hated shoes, brushing her hair, and the cold. She liked finger painting, dancing, and all the shiny things the darker of her two fathers wouldn’t let her touch.

 

Three years later the girl decided on Smallville Elementary and ran shrieking with delight into the classroom; distinguishable among the crowd of children by the long messy locks of thick black hair flying free around her face. Her other identity, Elena Wayne, was officially homeschooled much to the dissatisfaction of the prestigious schools all eagerly offering the richest little girl in Gotham their credentials.

 

Dick and her found a tree on ParadiseIsland that was hollow and stood in the middle of a gully mostly abandoned but for a few tolerant women who would pretend not to see their young Princess as she tried to disappear into the shadows like her adopted older brother. On those branches she fell in love with climbing. That love built to passion expressed not just on trees but temples, barns, and the spires of Wayne manor. Despite herself she could never get quite as high as Dick unless flown up by the more enabling of her fathers.

 

Elena hated teachers that made her redo her messy handwriting, the turtle that never came out of its shell for her on Themyscra, and the sounds the manor would make late at night. She liked the sun, getting tossed in the air high enough to see where the cornfields became mountains, and her lessons with her grandmother.

 

She came home crying one day after a fight between another girl who insisted princesses got rescued from towers and didn’t use swords, declare feasts, or have many wives.

 

A few years later, Dick started seeing the police commissioner’s daughter more often than her. Elena developed a wary dislike of the older girl and icily wondered what game they played in his bedroom that was so fun he didn’t want to climb trees anymore. Miserably resigned herself to a playmate-less future.

 

Until Jason came.

 

Jason liked fighting more than climbing, hated that she could beat him at arm wrestling without trying, and preferred to play beside the bathing pool on Themyscira than in the hollow tree. He wasn’t as fun as Dick but was more adventurous and exciting. Together they stole offerings from the temple to Hera, spied on Batman from the back of the batcave, and found a way to hack Jor-El so he would say everything twice.

 

She hated Jason stealing her lunch, kids that fought over which of her dads was cooler at school, and not being able to be as good at sports as she really was. She liked the long cool feel of dad’s cape and hiding in it whenever he left it in the batcave, the stories her mother would tell of the heroines of the past, and when her parents were all in one place.

 

They were always best together.

 

In her spare time she would watch her them with Alfred on the TV as they flew, swung, and jumped across the news reports. When she was little she would always cheer whenever they knocked down one of the baddies, and boo whenever they were knocked down in turn. As she got older the meaning of the blood and bandages in the batcave became clearer, the word kryptonite became scary, and the few battles mother could pick up her sword left her staring silent at the screen.

 

When Jason died she stopped watching.

 

There had been too much watching. It was time for action.

 

He wouldn’t let her follow him out on patrol like he’d let Dick and Jason, nor would Dick let her join his rag tag team of teenagers he called titans. So, she followed in the footsteps of the girl she had once so disliked, and went out on her own as Batgirl.

 

It took her parents almost two days to find out.

 

When they did dad took her away from the angry glare of her other father, and the worried frown of her mother and calmly flew her up high enough to see the shape of the planet and asked her why.

 

Did she want to be like dad? Did she want to do what they did? Did she want to do what her brothers did? Did she want to hurt bad guys? Did she want to feel powerful? Did she think it was fun?

 

Jason. She answered Jason.

 

“Revenge,” dad said with a strange smile. “You always have been more like him.”

 

Elena lay in bed listening to her parents argue and the next night she was allowed for follow dad when the signal came on.

 

Her training until that point had been inclusive and practical. Now, it became militaristic. She was glad when Tim came so she wasn’t the only one trapped under the angry eye of the bat.

 

Tim was nice in a practical way. Their friendship built from their close environment rather than any shared interest. He never became part of the family the way Dick was and Jason had been and when Conner Kent came he followed that tradition. Kara didn’t. Kara swooped down into the fray with a smile that won her in the moment and flew her higher than dad ever dared.

 

She always wished she could fly like mum and dad.

 

She could jump really far though. Three blocks of Gotham if she got a run up. Dad hated it when she did that.

 

She hated Doomsday for hurting her dad, the news lady with the blonde hair who always asked about her other dad, and when it rained on patrol. She liked cookies and cream ice cream, picking up cars when no one was looking, and when Dick came to visit.

 

When she was thirteen Jason came back. He had been her motive for so long it felt suddenly wrong to follow dad knowing her vengeance would never be as true as his. In a way, she learnt, it never was. She was never left as alone as he was, she was never as destroyed as he was, and she never fell into battle with the same hunger as he did.

 

Jason never said sorry for leaving.

 

For her fourteenth birthday she got her own pair of bulletproof bracelets from her grandmother, a cake which Dick ate, a thousand dollars from one father, an alien flower from another, and a lesson in flying the invisible jet from her mother. She loved the invisible jet. It felt like flying when she drove it. Flying like mum and dad. She didn’t tell mum she already knew how to fly it. She’d been flying it for years.

 

She hated the sound of breaking bones, the Joker, and the statue at the temple of Hera. She liked Alfred’s cooking, middle school, and that really fast boy Dick sometimes brought home.

 

A few years later Damian came.

 

Her parents fought.

 

Harder and louder than they’d ever fought before.

 

Damian’s was dad’s but not dad’s or mum’s. A son of the bat and another woman. Elena had trained with the World’s Greatest Detective long enough to get the full story and was old enough to understand what it meant.

 

Drugged and raped.

 

He was the hardest member of their piebald family to accept. But she did in time. She even loved him. The rough and ready little boy who looked so much like dad behind steel blue eyes, and a stubborn slightly overshot jaw. There was something satisfying in knowing that despite the crimes of his mother he, under it all, was still a good kid.

 

She hated the weight of the crown she wore at feasts with the Amazons, flowers that bloomed too early in spring and were killed by the nightly frosts, and the smell of the GothamRiver. She liked the sound of her cape behind her when she swang between buildings, the too hot taste of secret kisses shared in costume, and the way Alfred would still take the top off her boiled egg.

 

When dad disappeared she shed the stale colours of Batgirl. The identity was too old, too often imitated, and felt weighted and wrong tagged beside her name in the batcomputer when Bruce Wayne wasn’t beside Batman.

 

She became something else. Something hers. The cape she always liked to roll up in, the bracelets of her grandmother, and a chest of close knit kryptonian red because it let the sun through to her skin… and she’d always hated the cold.

 

It was almost a year later when they finally picked up the trail of the missing man plunged into the spiral of time. Her mother stayed in case he made out of the thick flow of time himself. Her father went back in time. She went forward.

 

Found him.

 

He was infected with a mix of end of time technology and the anti life equation that had almost shattered her whole world. She told him he needed to come back. He asked her how.

 

How were they going to return without ripping open time? How were they going to free him of the technology? How were they going to bring him back without destroying the world? How would they succeed?

 

Together, she answered. They would deal with it together. Find a way. Anyway. They always had.

 

“Hope,” dad said with a strange smile. “You’ve always been more like him.”

 

She was right.

 

The following years were short and strange. Beautiful in their strange symmetry to her earliest memories as her parents returned to their open, unhindered, love affair of her youth. Made more beautiful again by the sprawling tangle of their ever growing family.

 

Elena turned twenty at two twelve in the morning of October twelve.

 

Moved into her own city, made her own money, and joined with her own ragtag team of heroes.

 

She hated how small the world had become, how close the sky, and how eager the young criminals were. Liked knowing her family was close even when they weren’t, making her own way, and being able to chase the sun around the globe in an invisible jet.

 

Her twentieth birthday present that easily ranked her mother as her favourite parent for the foreseeable future.

 

Loved the warmth of the sun, climbing trees, and that she could still beat Jason at arm wrestling.

 

Loved that her parents still called her theirs.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, all. I hope it was as turbulent, as teasing, and as terrific to read as it was to write. We may have fallen in and out of love at times but in the end we came through.
> 
> Oh, and good work making it to the end. It's much longer than originally planned.
> 
> I'm still really new at all this so the feedback and comments have been beyond awesome. Thanks so much all of you. If any of you have some words to share before we part ways, by all means. You guys are one of the reasons why I write this stuff.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, hope you're having a brilliant day, and never forget you're awesome.


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